THE JUDICIAL HUMORIST
.[To the Editorof TEE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—It SeeITIS to me that your reviewer of Lord Darling's Famous Cases does less than justice to the Judge's wit and humour. Certainly he rays that many of his jokes were of the Punch type, but, strange to say, he says it in disparagement. I would say that Punch jokes rely almost entirely on their genuine humour and not on literary and historical allusions, as your reviewer seems to think. In comparing the Judge's humour .with that of Punch he pays the former the highest, compliment, but one wonders if he isn't later "damning with faint praise" when he describes it as "good clean dra:ing: room fun." He quotes what may be called "pawky "' remarks—one to J. H. Thomas—and because they are not great jokes (especially out of their contexts), he throws doubt on Lord Darling's powers of humour, as he had already done on his capacity as a judge. Possibly the value of your re- viewer's opinion of the Judge, as such, is greater than his discrimination regarding Lord Darling's wit and humour. Of the latter there. are many instances, but perhaps I may be -
allowed to give two. Counsel asked a witness : "And what did you say to the man ? " Witness : "I told him to go to
Hell." Lord Darling whispered : "Is he in Court?" The other example I heard myself at a re-trial because of a case of mistaken identity. Counsel was describing how a robbery had taken place and a photograph of the prisoner (who was thought to have beeii wrongly convicted) had been found on the premises. "Did he leave it for the police ? " interpolated Lord Darling.
Surely such remarks did no harm to justice and only-revealed that. a brilliantly keen and lively mind was engaged on the
matter in hand. A sense of humour, a sense of proportion and a sense of fairness being closely related, Lord Darling appears to have been well-equipped in these fundamental qualities.
Your reviewer ends by asserting that "it Could hardly be expected of him to show qualities such as humanity of kind: ness, which we degenerate moderns look for in a judge, rather than wit or literary ability." On the contrary the possession of humour (adorned by wit and literary ability) by a judge -would lead me to expect just those qualities of humanity and kindness. which- irour reviewer failed to See-in
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