Judicial Diversions. claimed exemption. " My lord," said the applicant, " I am deeply interested in a funeral which takes place to-day, and am most anxious to follow." " Certainly, sir, your plea is a just one," remarked his lord ship. The man departed; and the next day the judge learned that he was the undertaker. One of the mildest of the High Court judges, Mr. Justice Wills, was extremely ruffled at Birmingham one day, when he found that some local magistrates had sent a man for trial at the assizes on a charge which had not been, in his opinion, sufficiently investigated. He strongly condemned the perfunctory way in which he considered the magistrates had done their duty. He was somewhat disconcerted to find at a later stage that one of the defaulting magistrates was his own brother. A singular circumstance led to the release of a Scandinavian sailor who was recently charged at Swansea with the wilful wounding of a comrade. The jury found what was considered a verdict of not guilty. The judge thereupon acquitted the prisoner, and retired from the court. The jury then awoke to the fact that the Court had some how given a wrong verdict. Messengers were sent for the judge, but that functionary had left the building. The clerk of arraigns then informed the jury that as the wrong
485
verdict had been recorded, it could not be recalled. The officials of a country police-court were startled one day to see a man walk into the court with an enormous axe over his shoulder. He glared fiercely around him, as if he expected to be attacked. Ultimately the clerk of the court ventured to ask him why he was armed with so formidable a weapon. The man replied that his summons told him to be provided with the means of defence, and he considered that an axe would do for that purpose. The manufacture of judicial bulls is appar ently not confined to Ireland. In Mr. Ser geant Robinson's book, entitled " Bench and Bar," there are some whimsical stories of days gone by. Amongst these is the following sentence, once pronounced on a prisoner by an occupant of the Bench at the Old Bailey : "It is in my power to subject you to trans portation for a period very considerably beyond the term of your natural life; but the Court, in its mercy, will not go so far as it lawfully might go." On another occa sion the same judge addressed the culprit : "Prisoner at the bar, if ever there was a clearer case than this of a man robbing his master, this case is that case." To another prisoner he considerately offered " a chance of redeeming a character that he had irretrievably lost." — Tit Bits.
