544
THE GREEN BAG
two other judges — "These men were not waifs and strays of the political world pro vided for by Judgeships." The late Sir Henry Hawkins had, like all of us, his limitations. A judge has civil cases to try as well as criminal. Mr.Justice Hawkins did not interest himself in civil actions, although while at the Bar he had a large and lucrative practice in compensa tion cases. It is recorded of him, that, as a judge, he treated his work on circuit as a concertina player uses his instrument. He pulled it out and enjoyed playing it while he was employed on the criminal side; he shut it up and put it aside when he was on the civil side. As a result he did not give the same satisfaction to the public in one class of cases as in the other. He summed up in Kitson v. Playfair when the jury awarded £10,000 as damages against the late Dr. Playfair for breach of professional confi dence. The damages were in the opinion of impartial persons most excessive, and were reduced to ^8,000 by the Court of Appeal. The jury were under the wand of a magician, Mr. Lawson Walton, Q. C. (the late Attorney General). The trial is memorable because Sir Frank Lockwood, Q. C., led for Dr. Playfair. Sir Frank Lockwood was one of the wittiest advocates of Queen Victoria's reign. He was then approaching his death. He was deeply chagrined by the result and said that he would only be remembered as the counsel for the defendant against whom the heaviest damages on record had been recov ered. It is the old, old story of the priest who serves the altar until he grows old, when a younger one than he slays him and steps into the vacant place until he in turn yields to a younger or to death. We would also tell another anecdote for which the reader will search in vain in these Reminiscences. A veterinary surgeon sued the eldest son of a duke (both now dead) for the keep of and attendance on a horse left at his stables by the defendant. No letters had been written by the defendant to the plaintiff. The defendant pleaded that the
horse was not his. The plaintiff's solicitor succeeded in producing an unimpeachable witness, who proved that the horse (in respect of which the action was brought) belonged to the defendant. The defend ant's counsel said that after that evidence he would not waste the time of the Court. The judge (Mr. Justice Hawkins) then directed the jury to find a verdict for the plaintiff for the amount claimed with costs. This was a case in which one would have thought the less said about the defendant, the better, but Mr. Justice Hawkins decided otherwise. "The jury would agree with him," he added, "that the defendant had acted throughout as a perfect gentleman." Listeners could only exclaim — "That in the Captain 's but a choleric word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy."
There is at least one anecdote recorded in these Reminiscences, which places the judge in as unfavorable a light as the foregoing incident. We will not repeat it here. It is our desire to pay Lord Brampton the tribute due to him as a criminal judge. It is a mis take to suppose that criminal judges and counsel have only to deal with thieves and murderers. They have to unravel cases more difficult even than trials in which they grope their way by the uncertain guide of circumstantial evidence. Reginat1. Bottomley and others is a case in point. Promoters are an unpopular class. Judges, therefore, who have to try promoters, should specially guard themselves against even the appear ance of partiality. Mr. Horatio Bottomley (now M. P.) was and is a promoter. In 1893 Mr. Justice Hawkins conducted his trial with conspicuous fairness. Mr. Bottomley de fended himself. Sir John Rigby, Q. C. (then Solicitor General and afterwards Lord Jus tice) led for the prosecution. Sir John Rigby was a counsel of immense learning and abil ity, but his practice was at the Chancery Bar. To place him in absolutely new surroundingand put him against a quick-witted defends ant, like Mr. Bottomley, was nothing more or less than cruelty. We are told that the
