A Great Magistrate BOOKS OF THE DAY
By MAURICE HEALY
" Tii.F.ap is a curious delusion abroad that authors are not good company : 'The best of them is in their books,' and so forth. This has certainly not been my experience." So writes Sir Chartres Biron in a chapter on his literary friends ; and, it is to 'be hoped, removes any sting that may be suspected of lurking-in this or any other review of a volume published by him. For the room-mate of Avory, the fellow yachtsman of Sir Thomas Lipton, the Chief Magistrate at Bow- Street, and the President-Elect of the Johnson Society might well be expected to produce a volume of reminiscences that would reach a standard far above that usually attained by literary lawyers. The practising lawyer probably leads a life more interesting than that of the member of any other profession or calling ; one would expect that a good memory and a good style would be sufficient to secure a book of outstanding- merit. Yet suCh volumes are usually vapid and tedious ; and fot an obvious reason. A lawyer knows the secret history of his case ; but it is a secret history, and it is not his secret. Frequently it is only by indiscretion that he•can be interesting ; or perhaps it would be fairer to say' 'discretion is a blue pencil that frequently blots out interest. And the pages so blotted out are too often replaced by, others devoted to banalities. Now, the making of a good book demands either the relation of facts known to few except the author, or an original view upon the facts known to everybody. - When. a 'lawyer tells the public that roses smell sweet or that the Thames is a lovely river he awakens little interest ; but we sit up and take notice when he begins to recount the less widely known stories about Lord Darling or Sir Edward Marshall Hall,' or the trial ofRoger Casement. A' futare' edition of the present volume might well replace ttiebsticdtkin On the War with some more stories of the Courts ; and if to be considered really without prejudice, might omit some crf-the More provocative opinions on subjects like Free- Trade,-or German 'war-guilt in 1870 or in 1914. (The author thinks the Germans did not intend to damage Rheims ('athedral, and that the principal damage was caused by a blazing scaffolding. But the scaffolding was fired by a shell ; and the damage done by the fire was only a small fraction of the mischief.) . It is not Sir Chartres Biron's Irish blood that makes him so kindly to the Irish, for it was Huguenot blood, and ought to have produced a desire for the Pope's damnation and a hatred of Papish rebels. But paradox had its way ; Irish tenants impoverished his family without affecting his bene- volence, and the only Irishman he treats less than fairly in his book is the late Lord Carson. Just As. you had to be a Southerner to appreciate the greatness of Abraham Lincoln, snyou had to be his bitter opponent to do justice to Cinson. Carson's honour was stainless ; and he is sketched in these pages. as a trifler on the Home Rule question, who might just as well have held the brief on the other side. One feels that,Sir.Chartres missed the stature of the man, all the more when we find little reminiscence of an advocacy that was far and away the greatest the Bar has known since Russell's time.
It was Eton that made Biron : his first love, his last love. Hisuniversity days are dismissed in a few sentences ; even the Temple and the Old Bailey fail to awaken the same enthus- iastic reminiscences. And 'yet he had the luc,k in his early days to attract the favourable notice ,of Horace Avory. who Without.Prejudice : Impressions of Life and Law. By Sir Chartres Biron. (Faber and Faber, 4583
invited him into his chambers, and gave him the fall of his briefs. Many who knew Avory well as a judge, but whose memories did not go back behind 1910, would have been glad to read more about the methods of that remarkable man when he was still practising at the Bar. And while we gratefully receive the stories, new to many, about the author's uncle, the late Lord Justice Mathew, there is regret in one breast at least that no room was found for sonic of the jewels so lavishly scattered by the Lord Justice's son, Theo. Some permanent home must be found for " Dr. Livingstone, I presume ? " and there are others even wittier, that will be lost to posterity if nothing is done about them,
On -the Bench Sir Chartres brought urbanity to a position too often unacquainted with it. Like many Liberals, he was a conservative magistrate, but he tells one excellent tale of the somewhat unusual way in which he rounded up and stamped out an .organised gmig that was making life in Hoxton impossible: The chief was found to hive a copy of Stone's Justice's Manual carefully noted up in manuscript. (The salmon poachers in Kerry twenty-live years ago used to subscribe to The Irish Law Times!) Although believing that probation of offenders is -to:lay bring used indiscriminately and is not suitable for certain kinds of cases, Sir Chartres was not severe ; his natural kindliness and sense of huMour kept breaking in. Ile is, one is happy to note; a firm opponent of flogging ; he shows no enthusiasm for capital punishment, perhaps remembering the text " Whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevea-fold." He is, rightly; a strong supporter of the police ; but one could wish that he had said a word of criticism of the practice, peculiar to the Metropolis, whereby a policeman is allowed to go into the witness box, open his notebook and read out his evidence as written therein. And in some of the Metropolitan Courts there is too great a tendency to regard police evidence as gospel. It must never be forgotten that a policeman is, in a sense, a professional witness, and a party to the case. If his prosecution fails, he will feel that he may be considered to have acted injudiciously. When he is preparing his note he is not on oath. No other witness would be allowed to take a prepared statement into the box with him and read it out.
There are some curious errors in the book. There was no Marshal Cambron ; and General Cambronne did say, "The Old Guard dies, but does not surrender," although he probably had already uttered the immortal words attributed to him by Victor Hugo in Les Miserables. If Sir Chartres has not read La Petite Ilistoire by the late G. Lenotre, lie will find this and other subjects most charmingly treated therein. A more serious mistake (pp. 137-9) is the confounding of a dying declaration with a deposition made by a dying man who subsequently dies before the trial. Was there a "great Dan O'Connor" (p. 140), or is this a reference to Daniel O'Connell ? And it was at the civil trial of the "Mr. A." case, and not at the subsequent prosecution, that the Bank called one of the conspirators as a witness ; and were con- sidered to have lost caste by doing so, although in the hands of one of the greatest and most honourable of modern advo- cates. But these are small blemishes in a book. that tells its tale delightfully, revealing something, though far from all, of the charm of its distinguished author, who has by, no means, exhausted his material, and should . be persuaded to supplement this work, by a companion, and companionable, volume..,
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