Wherever men gather for social purposes, whether in London clubs
or in village inns, little circles, form who (in the clubs, at any rite) lunch at the same table, take their coffee in some corner of the smoking-room and discuss the affairs of the world together. It makes life pleasant—till death breaks in on life. 'Yearby year, or perhaps not quite as often, the inevitable gaps come. Some- one's chair is vacant for a few days or weeks ; then the news comes that its occupant will never fill it again. This week at two clubs—the Reform and the Oriental—Walter Hedley is being sadly remembered. Well known for many years on the Northern Circuit, he took silk in 1928, but when cases fell off during the depression of the 'thirties he became a Metropolitan Magistrate, sitting first at Clerkenwell and then at Marlborough Street.
" Another failed silk," he remarked cheerfully—and character- istically—when be accepted the appointment. Broad-minded, inflexibly just and full of common sense, he was admirably quali- fied for magisterial work. His death follows a gradual failure of health dating back to a stroke some two years ago.
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