were in the possession of men who sincerely believed that
scheme which had nothing to recommend it but a vague the English law as it then stood was the perfection of belief that the tendencies of human nature had hitherto human reason. It is true that John Doe and Richard been misunderstood. Some of his sayings in regard to Roe, the great twin-brethren of the Common Law, still Socialism were so pregnant and so well put, that they They loved and believed in the manifold restrictions and Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, he put the individualist case with great limitations which beset the use of property in England. point and picturesqueness :—" Suppose my friend and I Lord Bramwell, however, belonged to the new order, and had to think for each other's wants instead of each for his he was for making the law as simple, as reasonable, and as own, I am afraid I should feed him sometimes when he much bound by common-sense as was possible. He and the was not hungry, and he occasionally would put me to bed other great Liberal lawyers of the past generation wanted to when I was not sleepy. I should take him, for his good, see men as little interfered with by the law as might be, and to the Liberty and Property Defence League, and he would wherever possible, free to obey their own wills. Strangely take me, for mine, to a Social Science Congress, to the enough, the revolution of the years has brought us a edification of neither." It would not be possible, again, to new set of reformers, with exactly opposite ideals. Nowa- put that sympathy with the main sentiment which inspires days, every Session brings us fresh proposals, not for doing Socialism which we must all feel, better than Lord Bramwell away with restraining enactments and setting men free, put it. " Every good man," he would say, " has been at some but for adding new legal obligations. The cry is not for time of his life a Socialist;—and if wise, has very soon ceased less law and more freedom, but for more law and less to be one." Allied with these declarations as to Socialism liberty. The motive that inspires the weaving of the new was his admirable dictum as to natural rights :—" Natural net may be different from that which inspired the weaving rights are talked of. Nonsense ! Natural rights may of the old, but the result when it is cast over the head of exist when men are in a state of nature. What they may the citizen, will be just the same. The forbidding men to be I know not, but when man is in a social state, his rights work for more than so many hours a day, the rendering are what the law gives him ; and if the law is wise it will of this or that contract void without the sanction of some give him all he can get." It was this belief that man is public officer, and the imposition of municipal rights of the better for all the liberty he can get, that made Lord pre-emption and interference in regard to land, will sit Bramwell so energetic in his support of the Liberty quite as heavy on the subject's chest as John Doe and a and Property Defence League. He was often, no doubt, Fine and Recovery, carried too far in his objections to increased legislation, It is a nice question for lawyers to decide, whether Lord but that did not prevent his pamphlets and his letters to Bramwell was a great or only a good Judge. Lord Bram- the Times from doing very useful work. He stopped, single- well himself declared that, if he had the choice, he would handed, many dangerous pieces of legislation, and caused much prefer to be a good Judge. The writer of the objectionable provisions to be excised from many others. admirable obituary notice in the Times asserts that In politics, Lord Bramwell was very strongly Unionist. The he was both, and in this we agree with him. Lord factiousness and extravagance which marked the opposition Bramwell may sometimes have preferred to decide accord- to the Crimes Act filled him with indignation and disgust. ing to what ought to be the law, rather than according to As may be imagined, the attempts of the Gladstonians to what was the law ; but he never carried this perilous show that the Government had added new offences to the principle of conduct too far. He gave common-sense the Statute-Book, when in truth they had only altered the pro- benefit of the doubt, that was all. Take, for example, his cedure in matters which were offences before, were regarded judgment in the House of Lords in regard to the great by him with special disfavour. Such quibbling he held to be bills of exchange case, the "Bank of England v. Vag- both dishonest and absurd, and in an article in the Liberal liano." Certain of Lord Bramwell's colleagues leant to Unionist he administered a crushing reply to the de- the doctrine that Petridi and Co., the alleged drawers, were clarations of the Opposition, and showed conclusively that a sham and yet somehow existed. "This beats me," said the talk of new crimes showed. either ignorance or lack of Lord Bramwell. "They are at the same time real and candour. unreal ; they are that which is said to be an impossibility, It would be unfitting to refer to Lord Bramwell and not —being and not being at the same time." Here was a note the manliness and good sense with which he bore capital instance of the attitude of robust common-sense himself during the quarter of a century that he was on adopted by Lord Bramwell in dealing with the legal ques- the Bench and went circuit. Baron Bramwell was not a tions arising before him. Mountstuart Elphinstone, one of hanging Judge, but he would. have nothing to do with the the ablest of Indian administrators, was wont to declare attempts to shield criminals from the consequences of that people would never remember that things cannot be their acts by pleas of moral insanity. When an endeavour and not be at the same time. Lord Bramwell, as we see, of this kind was made before him, he used his clear in- never forgot this wholesome maxim. If the law led to sight into facts and his hard common-sense to brush the conclusion that things could be and not be at away the film of sentiment. Though he was a the same time, so much the worse for the law. It severe Judge, he was respected by the men whom must not be supposed, however, that Lord. Bramwell was he tried and sentenced, and this in no small measure one of those rough-and-ready common-sense men who, because he made it his practice never to deliver those moral in doing what they call substantial justice, override Acts lectures which, though they obviously can do no good, are of Parliament, and set long-established principles at indulged in by many Judges. With such theatrical die- defiance. He was one of the most learned as well as one plays of rhetoric he had. little sympathy, and he therefore of the most open-minded of men, and if he disregarded gave his sentences in as few words as possible. This habit authorities, did so with his eyes open. And not only in sometimes led to curious scenes. The writer of the Times matters of law did Lord Bramwell remember that things obituary notice, to which we are indebted for a whole collec- could not both be and not be at the same time. He applied tion of Lord Bramwell's wise and witty sayings, recounts this guiding maxim to politics and to economic science. that on one occasion the following dialogue took place In any scheme, he kept his eye upon the object professed, between the Judge and a prisoner :—" Baron Bramwell (to and then in effect asked : Can the thing be done without prisoner found guilty) : You have been convicted.— involvin g a fatal contradiction ? ' If the answer was No,' Prisoner: 'Ow much ?—Baron Bramwell : Nine months. not all the rhetoric nor all the sentiment in the world would (Exit prisoner.)" Lord Bramwell was, in a word, one of wring from him an approval. This temper of mind made those rare men who will stand no nonsense. To many men him what is called "intensely practical," though he might a little conscious indulgence in and tolerance of nonsense is as well have been called "intensely theoretical," since his a pleasure. To Lord Bramwell nonsense was pure evil, object was to get the theory right, in order that the right and wherever and whenever he met it, he felt as a knight practice mig'it follow. He would, for example, have encountering a dragon or a giant,—his object was to over- nothing to do with Socialism, for he saw that thee throw and utterly destroy it. He fought with these dreadful Socialist theories were hopelessly illogical and absurd, and LORD BRAMWELL. could, therefore, do nothing but break down in practice. TJORD BRAMWELL was the last of the great Liberal He realised the priceless benefits conferred upon mankind lawyers,—men of very different opinions from those by the institution of private property, and by the emanci- of Mr. Asquith and Mr. Haldane. When Lord Bramwell pation of the individual under a system of free contract, began his legal life, the high places of the Bench and Bar and he refused to give up those benefits in order to try a were in the possession of men who sincerely believed that scheme which had nothing to recommend it but a vague the English law as it then stood was the perfection of belief that the tendencies of human nature had hitherto human reason. It is true that John Doe and Richard been misunderstood. Some of his sayings in regard to Roe, the great twin-brethren of the Common Law, still Socialism were so pregnant and so well put, that they held sway ; but this did not prevent the admirers of the deserve to be specially remembered. For example, in his old system from regarding it as entirely admirable. pamphlet " Laissez-Faire," written in answer to a speech by They loved and believed in the manifold restrictions and Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, he put the individualist case with great limitations which beset the use of property in England. point and picturesqueness :—" Suppose my friend and I Lord Bramwell, however, belonged to the new order, and had to think for each other's wants instead of each for his he was for making the law as simple, as reasonable, and as own, I am afraid I should feed him sometimes when he much bound by common-sense as was possible. He and the was not hungry, and he occasionally would put me to bed other great Liberal lawyers of the past generation wanted to when I was not sleepy. I should take him, for his good, see men as little interfered with by the law as might be, and to the Liberty and Property Defence League, and he would wherever possible, free to obey their own wills. Strangely take me, for mine, to a Social Science Congress, to the enough, the revolution of the years has brought us a edification of neither." It would not be possible, again, to new set of reformers, with exactly opposite ideals. Nowa- put that sympathy with the main sentiment which inspires days, every Session brings us fresh proposals, not for doing Socialism which we must all feel, better than Lord Bramwell away with restraining enactments and setting men free, put it. " Every good man," he would say, " has been at some but for adding new legal obligations. The cry is not for time of his life a Socialist;—and if wise, has very soon ceased less law and more freedom, but for more law and less to be one." Allied with these declarations as to Socialism liberty. The motive that inspires the weaving of the new was his admirable dictum as to natural rights :—" Natural net may be different from that which inspired the weaving rights are talked of. Nonsense ! Natural rights may of the old, but the result when it is cast over the head of exist when men are in a state of nature. What they may the citizen, will be just the same. The forbidding men to be I know not, but when man is in a social state, his rights work for more than so many hours a day, the rendering are what the law gives him ; and if the law is wise it will of this or that contract void without the sanction of some give him all he can get." It was this belief that man is public officer, and the imposition of municipal rights of the better for all the liberty he can get, that made Lord pre-emption and interference in regard to land, will sit Bramwell so energetic in his support of the Liberty quite as heavy on the subject's chest as John Doe and a and Property Defence League. He was often, no doubt, chimeras of the law and the market-place, and slew not a few. Now that he is gone, we can only hope that as doughty a champion of freedom and common-sense will be found to take his place.
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