Trials and Errors
Cases that Changed the Law. By H. Montgomery Hyde. (Heine- mann. 1 as. 6d.) LAW is stranger than fiction, and there seems to be an almost unlimited public appetite for its strangeness. It requires, however, considerable literary skill to lend credibility to the incredible as it happens in real life and especially in courts of justice. It is diffi- cult to strike the balance between flat narrative which leaves the reader apathetic and over-emphasis which turns the " drama " of the law into melodrama. Mr. Montgomery Hyde has not completely mastered this difficult knack. The defect of his book is that it attempts too much. It describes a large number of cases, some very well known, others not so familiar, but in most instances the treatment is too brief and the style too pedestrian to grip and to hold. The narrative is clear, the subject-matter diverse and exciting ; and yet one is surprised to find that one is seldom really excited.
Only the first six cases are relevant to the title: Burke and Hare (here Mr. Hyde falls far short of the full macabre horror of that dreadful story), the melancholy experiences of Caroline Norton in the then barbarous law of married women's property, the mass public execution of the " Flowery Land " pirates, the fantastic exploits of W. T. Stead in mock-procuring, the Adolf Beck cage and the Royal Mail Packet trial. All these were the occasion, directly or indirectly, of overdue reforms of the law. The next section comprises a number of unsolved Irish " mysteries," including the famous disappearance of the Irish Crown Jewels, and will be new and informative to most English readers. These are followed by a series of celebrated Irish trials, including several which are already somewhat overworked by compilers of case-books, such as the trial of Robert Emmet, the Phoenix Park • murders and the Parnell Commission.
The last section is in some ways the most arresting. Mr. Hyde has had access to some hitherto unpublished papers concerning Oscar Wilde, especially his correspondence with Edward William Godwin about the decoration of the Tite Street house. Here is greenery-yallery beyond the dreams of Grosvenor Gallery. " Each chair is a sonnet in ivory an* the table is a masterpiece in pearl." " We find that a rose leaf can be laid on the ivory table without scratching it." " Do just add a bloom of colour in curtains and cushions." Unfortunately, ivory sonnets and pearl masterpieces cost hard cash, and we have many sidelights in these letters on the financial tangles and wrangles from which Wilde was never free even in his heyday. The evil that he did lived after him in fierce litigation, and of all the oddities in this volume none is more extra- ordinary than the trial in 1918 for criminal libel of the late Pemberton Billing in the so-called " Black Book " or Salome case. It is well described here. One had forgotten (and one would almost wish not to be reminded) that such pandemonium and phantas- magoria could ever have happened in an English court.
Not the least entertaining feature of the book is its glimpses, unfortunately too brief, of the lives of eccentrics and adventurers. Even the most perfervid fiction-writer would be .hard put- to it to surpass the characters and careers of such men as Adolf Beck, his " double " who modestly called himself John Smith,' Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Adolphus Cooke (" among the animals at Cooksborough was a large turkey-cock which he believed to be his father "), the Earl of Leitrim (who was so allergic to goats that he shot them on sight or evicted any tenant who kept them), and perhaps most of all the unbelievable Pemberton Billing himself. The law, more than anything in the world, constantly attests the eternal verity that " there's nowt so quler as folk." C. K. ALLEN.
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