When stress is laid, as it rightly is, on the
publicity of legal proceedings in this country, it is as well to be clear what publicity means. Normally it means, and should mean, that the general public has free access to the courts within the limits of accommodation. But apparently a cause célèbre can be turned on occasion into an entertainment for habitual first-nighters, with full machinery for the reservation of every public seat before the court opens. Select publicity, I suppose, may be said to meet the ends of justice as well as general publicity, but it would be interesting to know who makes the reservations of the public seats at the Old Bailey, and how the fortunate recipients of places become recipients. A member of the City Corporation, I am told, is entitled ex officio to, seats for himself and a friend. Whether that accounts for all the accommodation I don't know.
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