Judicial Wigs. from remote antiquity. Coke thought that its origin was surrounded with abundance of mystery, and it seems clear that, as a " legal number," it is far older than the petty jury itself. Yet it was not always universal. In 1652 a Cornish custom to have juries of six was declared to be bad; but evidence was given that such juries had been widely used in the county, and by a special statute of Henry VIII., juries of six were allowed in Wales. The County Court jury of five is, of course, a very recent, and some think a very unfortunate, innovation, and the Court in which it sits is itself only fifty years old. But the jury of the grand assize consisted of
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sixteen men, which still finds a parallel in the jury of presentments of the Liberty of the Savoy. The modern grand jury, the coro ner's jury, and the jury at lunacy and ecclesiastical inquisitions number anything between twelve and twenty-three, whereof twelve at least must agree on a verdict. So much for the law; the practice is, at least according to common report, that where the jury consists of twelve only, one petty jury man can get the plaintiff a verdict or acquit the prisoner, if only he is sufficiently obsti nate, and if he have breakfasted with foresight and discretion. — Ex.
JUDICIAL WIGS. THE uses of perukes and periwigs by judges and barristers as part of their professional attire dates from 1670, and has been retained to the present clay, although long abandoned by the other two learned pro fessions, and still longer by general society. The horsehair wigs of the present clay are made only of the best horsehair. It is the white qualities which are chiefly used, bought just as it is cut from the horse. Some of it comes from South America, some from France, some from China, and some from Russia. English horsehair is the best, being white down to the points. The hair is first hackled out, and sorted into lengths. It is then drawn through brushes three or four times, and next goes through the process of boiling, bleaching, baking, and curling on small wooden pipes, in order to prepare it for the loom. Next it is woven into material on silks of varying degrees of fineness (this work is done by women), and picked out for the different portions of the wigs, which are made on blocks or models, of which there are nearly a couple of hundred. As a rule, very little of the hair in its raw condition is of use. Most wig-makers buy their hair in a
curled state from large curlers; but others curl their own with a small hand-curling machine, which keeps the wig in a more firm condition, and prevents the hair turning to a yellow hue, as happens with inferior kinds. With this exception everything is done by hand, Years ago wigs had to be perpetually curled and frizzed and powdered. To Humphrey Ravenscroft — the founder in 1726 of the firm of wig-makers, and makers of all things belonging to lawyers' profes sional attire, on the same premises in Serle Street, Lincoln's Inn, occupied by the pre sent firm — occurred the idea of permanently fixing, by mechanical means, the multitudi nous curls of wigs. The general use of white hair for the manufacture of wigs was precluded at that time by its enormous price, according to Diprose's " St. Clement Danes' Parish" (1876), from which many of these details are taken. In the " Weekly Journal" for 1720, it is stated that the white hair of a woman who lived to the age of i/o — a mis print probably for 107 — was sold, after her death, to a periwig-maker for ^50. After a variety of experiments he took out a patent
