At a dinner given at the Mansion House on Wednesday
to old Rugbeians, Lord Derby, Mr. Goschen, and Lord Justice Bowen had their say. Lord Derby complained of the House of Lords for not containing nearly as many Rugbeians as it ought,—a defect which he hoped might soon be remedied ; though if Mr. Goschen 's description of the Rugbeiane as foot- ballers always willing to " hack " at each other's shins, is to be trusted, we should hardly think that that is precisely the kind of reform by which the House of Lords would most benefit. To have both Houses of the British Legislature proficients in this sort of " hacking," would give the world an impression that we had gone back to political barbarism. Lord Justice Bowen was equal to the occasion. He evidently did not forget what has recently been said in thellouse of Commons in a sense derogatory to our Courts of Justice, and he was indignant on behalf of those Courts. No English Judge, he said, could fail " to assert his right to rise in the proud consciousness that justice is administered in the realms of her Majesty, unspotted and unsuspected. There was no human being whose smile or frown, there was no Govern- ment, Tory or Liberal, whose favour or disfavour, could start the pulse of an English Judge upon the Bench of Justice, move by one hair's-breadth the even equipoise of her scales." Rugby on this occasion, we think, touched its highest point-in the noble pride of the great lawyer.
Previous page
