1 AUGUST 1868, Page 9

LAWYERS' WIGS.

THE heat has raised the question of Wigs., and with it a discus- sion, never yet settled in England, as to the merits or demerits of official costumes. The subject looks a small one, but it is worth arguing, for it involves in a very direct, though it may be a rather ridiculous, way a matter of some importance, namely, the end which the social reformers of the day intend to seek. Are they, to put it colloquially, going in for reality in all things, or only for equality in all things ? The two ends are very different, and we do not know that the difference can be better illustrated than by this very dispute about clothes. The able judge who presides in the Divorce Court, Sir James Wilde,—who, be it remarked, en passant, has filled Sir Cresswell Cresswell's seat in a manner which was said to be impossible, showing himself at once a consummate judge, a man of the world, and a man of principle, —this week advised the Bar to lay aside their wigs during the extreme heat. They complied. very gladly, and the momentary breach of etiquette was taken advantage of to decry the some- what antiquated and inconvenient costume still worn by the members of the Bar. In India and America, it was argued, the whole absurdity has been abolished. Judges are there considered citizens, invested with certain functions for the benefit of the community, and wear, without detriment to their office, the ordinary dress of gentlemen, barristers plead in frock-coats, and wigs are only worn at masquerades. Why should not the lawyers do the same in England, why, in fact, should not everybody wear the same costume, and the epecial office be left to enforce and receive such respect as is inherent in its powers, or its merits, or even its antiquity, and not in its clothes ? There is no doubt that with the advocates of equality, and indeed, more or less, with most men of democratic opinions, this matter of robes is a sort of crucial test ; that they heartily dislike them as relics of feudalism or other deceased organization of society, and will, if they can, abolish them altogether. An active and, so to speak, powerful impression of that kind deserves study, if only that we may know on what basis of reason our prejudices rest ; and this particular impression, as we have said, involves much.

Prima facie the weight of reasoning would seem to be all against the clothes, if only because the ordinary arguments in their favour are so singularly inept. The defence from the analogyof uniform, for instance, is an absurd one, for uniform is worn by soldiers and sailors as their weapons are worn, to increase their direct efficiency. A body of soldiers or sailors in uniform is more easily recognizable by its officers and its own members than a body without such uniform, and that pctwer of easy recognition is a valuable and indeed an essential element of force. It is usual to say that a uniform gives the soldier pride, and helps to preserve a sense of honour and that tradition of merit which has all the beneficial effect of pedigree ; but the original motive of uniform was the more vulgar one, increased efficiency, increased power of dis- tinguishing between friend and foe. The proof of that fact is that in a night attack, when ordinary uniform would be indistinguish- able, able commanders always try to devise a new one, a white sleeve, or a cross, or other mark which can be recognized when there is very little light. Uniform has other uses, the greatest, perhaps, being that it marks the soldier from the civilian, and, therefore, by making the armed man specially visible, makes him also specially responsible ; but its main use is the increase it affords

of direct power to the soldier to do the work for which he is educated, privileged, and paid. No such advantage can be claimed for most ceremonial uniforms, for those worn by deputy lieu- tenants, courtiers, diplomatists, or even, with all respect be- it spoken, barristers and judges. They could do their work. as efficiently in ordinary costume as in special dress, and the, popular defence for their robes needs examination before it is, accepted. It is said, again, that the robes and the wigs increase the

respect with which judges and counsellors are regarded by the multitude, and as it is well that the multitude should respect the ministers of the law, it is well that the latter should wear dresses which inspire respect. The argument deserves more atten- tion thiln the analogy from uniform, because, to begin with, its two main propositions are undeniably true. Nothing, no one sentiment man has ever evinced, is quits so valuable as respect for law. That is, we hope and believe, the feeling, or, to say what we really mean, the faith which as civilization advances will be the sufficient substitute for " reverence" in its social sense, "loyalty," "obedience," and many other sentiments which, once real and beneficial, are now becoming unreal and therefore mischievous. It

is also true that the masses of half-civilized men do respect autho- rity in fine clothes, or rather in exceptional clothes, more than authority in ordinary dress ; do feel more inclined to obey a " Red Judge" than a judge in a frock-coat, do hesitate more to criticize a decision given by a man in a wig than one delivered by a man without one. But this is not quite the whole case. If this reverence for clothes, inborn as it seems to be in some Western, races, is founded in any noble feeling, aunt qwestio, let us cultivate

costume, but if it is founded in a base proclivity of the human mind, then not even the value of reverence for law, not oven the aid the false respect lends to the administration of justice, is a sufficient excuse for pandering to such a depravation of an in- stinct. The American Democrat is then right, who holds all such things degrading ; and not the Continental Democrat, who holds them degrading or ennobling according to their social intent, who, for example, like most Reds, would have all men dressed alike unless honoured with a function from the people. The point is not what it is supposed to be, the effect of clothes in securing the obedience of the multitude,—which we admit to the full, and might, possibly, exaggerate,—but the effect of exceptional clothes worn by officers of the State or of the Law in elevating the multi- tude. If that is not secured, the case of the clothes will ultimately be lost, for the sentiment of equality, as far as it goes—and it goes, a wonderfully little way—does ennoble men, and is not lightly to be disregarded. These is this much to be said even for the election of judges, in itself the most fatal custom democracy has instituted, that it does force the ordinary man to consider what the law he helps to make really is, and why its exponent, whom he has helped to appoint, is deserving of his sedulous respect, a consideration much more to his mental and moral advantage than blind fear of the judge's power.

We confess we do see grave reason to believe, though we shall irritate many sober thinkers by saying so, that the system of official clothing will stand this supreme test ; that the special robe worn by the judge, or the barrister, or the policeman does actually elevate and not simply blind those it is intended to affect, does appeal to a certain nobleness and not to a certain baseness in their inner nature. We doubt whether the feeling which we English are compelled to describe by a Latin word, solemnity, be not a sound instead of an unhealthy state of mind, whether it does not often mean, whether in church, or court, or ceremonial, supposing it always to be real and not factitious, that the better nature of the man is struggling to the front, that his brain and heart are quickened and raised under it, instead of being debased or deterio- rated. Any severe call on a man, even if it be only a call to self- defence, makes him, or should make him, more of a man, would make him, if he were in the mental condition we all desire to see him reach ; and there is no call quicker or more certain of a response than that made by any real solemnity. If that is true,—and we all acknowledge it in connection with worship, though half of us seek the exciting means in a simplicity which, so to speak, reveals God, and the other half in a magnificence which honours him,—the case for the clothes is won, for nothing produces solemnity like a sudden change in the ordinary eircumstantials and surroundings of life. We could produce it, for example, most effectually in a court of justice without any change of clothes, by merely altering the colour of the atmosphere. We do not doubt that if every criminal were tried under red light, or blue light, or green light, or any light to which mankind are unaccustomed, the effect on him, on the bar, on witnesses would be one of awe ;- that there would be greater reluctance to tell lies, greater fear of resistance to law, greater disposition to realize the divinity-, so to speak, of the whole machinery, than if there were no such divergencies from the appearances of every-day life. That contrivance, though once familiar to many quasi-religious tribunals, is at once too incon- venient and too theatrical for our own time or for habitual use; but its effect, though differing in degree, would be identical in kind with that of the exceptional clothes worn in English Courts of Law —would, that is, bring home to all present the fact that they were in an atmosphere different from that of every-day life, an atmo- sphere in which truth was more indispensable, fairness more certain, justice more swift, than in the street or the home. Why should the strong though temporary concentration of mind produced by . such an atmosphere debase instead of ennobling? As a matter of fact, we know that it does not, that, for example, although there is much lying in English Courts of Justice,—frightfully much, espe- cially when the object is to make of moral legal evidence,—still, wit- • nesses are more truthful, more conscious that they ought to be =truthful in a Court than in the street. It may be said, that is all the fear of punishment ; but we would ask any honourable man who means to speak truth always, whether he did not become in Court more exact, more literal, in fact, though not in intention, more truthful than when be was out of it. He would be so in any Court, whether the judge were robed or not ? Doubtless, because the aspect of every Court, the mere fact that the assembly is a Court, makes him so ; but the effect will be all the more rapid and complete for any violent divergence from the associations of every- day life, and the easiest of such divergencies is a change of costume.

It may be said that this argument would justify any amount of official bedizenment, any absurdity in special costume ; but that is a mere assertion, to be tested by the effect of the clothes. In some cases the effect of divergence is distinctly bad, as, for example, when it produces any kind of reverence for the clothes themselves, as must happen whenever they increase the prominence and visibleness of an unreal or bad idea. That would be the case, for example, if mere differences of rank were marked in the modern world by sumptuary laws. Or the clothes themselves may he objectionable, not because they are meaningless so much as because they awake some false or grotesque association. That is the case with English Court dress because it is so like a footman's, with the Windsor uniform for almost the same reason, and with one form of episcopal dress because it is so nearly that of another sex. The ordinary English clergyman's robe of office wakes no such feeling, hut on the contrary warns the audience that the speaker is about to address them on subjects higher than those of a public meeting, helps to put them in a frame of mind more instead of less receptive of the ideas he has to communicate. We might as well argue that gesture is no part of oratory, melody no part of poetry, form no part of substance, as that dress can lend nothing to the soleninity of ceremonial except an emotion which is either a surplusage or a baseness. It is neither, if our view is correct, but an aid, tending to concentrate, and, therefore, to strengthen, the impulses and faculties we all desire to call out.