THE NEW JUDGES.
IT is announced that Mr. Baron Wilde is to sit in the seat of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. Perhaps no judicial appoint- ment was ever more anxiously expected by the public ; for conjugal squabbles are always amusing, and all the world takes an interest in the Court of Divorce. If you are not married, at least you may be ; and if you really never have quarrelled as yet with the partner of your joys and sorrows, you probably do not feel quite certain but that you may some day. So when Sir Cresswell Cresswell died everybody felt that he had lost, as it were, a public friend—a man who was perpetually giving one the best advice, and most politely illustrating his remarks from one's neighbour's conduct and not one's own—which is just the contrary to what one's private friends do. For the public had been accustomed to watch him as judges seldom are watched, and to take an almost personal interest in the questions which he had to decide ; and gradually, as men watched, they came to perceive that he was remarkably endowed with certain rare qualities, both moral and intellectual, which particularly fitted him for the place he filled. First among these was an extraordinary sense of decorum. Not being, apparently to the mere on-looker, a man of wide sympathies or deep feelings (perhaps because his sense of personal dignity would not let him wear "his heart upon his sleeve for every daw to peek at"), he seemed to know by an unerring instinct what human conduct should be even in the most complicated and unusual circumstances. And being also under the influence of an intense scorn for everything base or mean, which he seemed not so much to express as to fail to conceal, the moral censures which it was so frequently his duty to pronounce were never weakened by any shadow of partizanship, but fell with full force upon the public mind. Dealing with questions on which it is very difficult to hide the feelings even when they are not permitted to bias the judgment, Sir Cresswell, to all men's apprehensions, did even-handed justice between party and party, and when he censured, as in Dr. Smethurst's case, he spoke not in the interest of the sufferer, but of public decency. His most remark- able intellectual gift was one which set off this moral gift to the best advantage, for it was the gift of expression. He had at his absolute command language the most precise and lucid, so that it was quite impossible for dulness to misapprehend or subtlety to pervert his meaning. He had also an extraordinary power of extracting truth by so framing his questions and governing the tone of his voice as to prevent the witness from seeing at the moment for which side his answer would tell. We are not, of course, pretending here to estimate either the character or the intellect of the deceased judge, but these were, perhaps, if not his highest qualities, those which he possessed in the highest degree ; and these, inasmuch as they were absolutely peraonal to the man, it would be idle to expect to the same extent in his successor; others he may manifest equally valuable, but not the same. What, however, is absolutely required in the Judge Ordinary, is that he should be a good lawyer. We do not mean, in the perverted sense in which the expression is often used, a learned lawyer- s man with a large store of legal precedents committed to memory, but one who has the power of seizing on the prin- ciples of law which govern the particular facts of the case before him. This power Sir James Wilde possesses. At the bar he was chiefly employed in arguing important questions of mercantile law—cases in which the facts were not disputed but only the rights of the parties to the suit, or cases for which no precedent could be found, and which, therefore, had to be decided on first principles. In this, the highest, if not the most lucrative kind of practice, Sir James Wilde had, when he was raised to the Bench, no superior ; and in his short career as a judge he has not disappointed the expectations of his friends. He has on all occasions of difficulty shown him- self a jurist, and has preferred to rest his decisions on princi- ple rather than on precedent. If in addition to this philoso- phical temper and grasp of mind (which after all makes the difference between a great and a good judge) we find in a man that command of temper and courtesy of manner which no one can deny to Baron Wilde, it will be admitted that the public has good reasons to hope that the administration of justice in the Divorce Court will not suffer at his hands.
It must be remembered, too, that his task is not the same as that of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. He has not to deal with a bar performing duties in which they are totally inex- perienced. The power of examining a witness in accordance with the laws of evidence can only be acquired by practice, and it was a melancholy sight to see learned civilians of middle age making the blunders and betraying the embarrass- ment of some young gentleman who is conducting his first undefended prosecution in a court of quarter sessions. Over all these difficulties Sir Cresswell triumphed. He may almost be said to have taught his bar their new duties, and that with a grace and neatness which were peculiar to the man. His successor will possess from the first the inestimable advantage of feeling sure that the leading counsel in Ills court are not merely zealous and learned, but in posses- sion of the requisite experience. The one objection to Baron Wilde is that he is not a man of robust health. This is probably one of the reasons why he desired the appointment. To such a man the labour of circuit must be very trying. He is deprived of the comforts of his home. If the business of the county is heavy, he must sit from nine in the morning till seven or perhaps eight or nine in the evening, so as to get through it in the allotted time. The duties of the Judge Ordinary do not make the same extraordinary demand on a man. Regular hours of sitting, never exceeding six in one day, with an occasional vacation, impose no burden which may not be readily borne by one whose strength would instantly give way under any unusual demand upon it.
So far, therefore, we believe the Government has chosen well. For the vacancy in the Exchequer made by Baron Wilde's promotion,—if the Attorney-General should choose to accept it, he has, of course, a prescriptive right to the place, and the profession would probably think that the appointment was quite an equivalent to his merits. If, however, he has a soul superior to a puisne judgeship, the claims of Serjeant Shee ought not to be over- looked. Decidedly at the head of the common law bar, the accident of his religion, in spite of Lord Shaftesbury and Mr. Bird, should not be allowed to be in his way. His competency will not be questioned, and there would be wis- dom in showing that we look with very different eyes on the Ultramontane party and on those English Catholics whose real liberality finds utterance in the Home and Foreign Review, and is honoured by the anathema of Cardinal Wiseman. Serjeant Shee has also on more than one occasion shown a sturdy independence which commands respect. Rather than be the nominee of the Irish bishops he lost his seat for Kil- kenny, and as no Catholic has any chance with an English constituency, lost with it his best chance of professional ad- vancement. Except the Attorney-General, we know no com- petent supporter of the Government in the House who has much claim to the post, except, perhaps, Mr. Collier, who is young enough to wait a little longer for the Solicitor-General- ship. From a purely professional point of view, Serjeant Shee has no rivals.
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