384
London Legal Letter.
that they were for the most part calm and dignified, though the strange taste and violent passions of the time give them occasionally
a grotesque appearance; but the severity of the censures or sentences imposed in several instances is in these days astonishing.
LONDON LEGAL LETTER. whose abstinence increases the allowance of wine London, July 7, 1894. LORD RUSSELL, of Killowen, is now Chief at the disposal of his fellow diners. I must con Justice of England; he will take his seat in fess I have very rarely had the pleasure of din a day or two, and his subsequent career will be ing with an abstainer in the precinct of the law, watched with intense interest. Lord Coleridge's but on the rare occasions on which I have, one death came very suddenly : his physical powers has never failed to admire the uncomplaining had abated sensibly during the last few years, neatness with which the anchorite passed the but anyone who knew him would have expected flowing bowl and cheerfully quenched his thirst his system to be capable of withstanding the with a few sips of water. Lately a sterner breed effects of the chill which carried him off. The has sprung into existence, and within the quiet late Lord Chief Justice played a most conspic halls of Grays Inn, certain students and junior uous part in public life; without being either a barristers, smarting under a sense of injustice no very great lawyer or a very great judge, he longer tolerable, have approached the master of formed a most admirable figurehead for our the Bench with a petition claiming that they common law system. Mr. Crump's agitation for should be supplied with non-alcoholic beverages, a Bar Association has borne some fruit after all. or in the alternative that a proportion of the Sir Henry James's committee has issued its re ' sum paid for the feast — two shillings sterling — port, which proposes the formation of a general should be deducted in respect of the wine they council of the Bar which would be the accredited do not drink. Out of sheer pity I should rather representative of the latter. It is suggested that be inclined to distribute a few bottles of lemon it should consist of the Attorney General, and ade or ginger beer among these thirsty agitators, the Solicitor General for the time being, and every but they are not entitled to any deduction from former law officer, while remaining in actual the sum they pay for their dinners, which only practice at the Bar, sixteen practising barristers, defrays a portion of the expense of the food sup of whom four are to be nominated by the masters plied, the wine and beer being presented by the Inn out of the corporate funds. However, as I of the branch of each of the four Inns of Court, and forty-eight practising barristers, to be elected say, let the teetotaler have some consideration. We have had another anarchist trial at the by the whole Bar. The council to have power to appoint six additional members as it may con Old Bailey; the prisoner was represented by sider desirable, by reason of their parlia Mr. Farrelly, to whom I referred in my June mentary or professional eminence, or on account letter as defending an anarchist conspirator on a of their representing any circuit or section of previous occasion. At the trial in question Mr. Farrelly succeeded in rescuing his client from the the Bar not adequately represented. The pro fession at large will watch with critical interest toils of the statute law directed against dabblers in explosives. There was a weak point in the the early career of this new organization. The legal teetotaler has at last asserted himself. chain of evidence forged by the brown authori For better or for worse there are comparatively few ties, and Mr. Farrelly successfully pressed this home in his powerful address to the jury, a ver members of the Bar who can claim the distinc tion, but here and there you do find a genuine dict of acquittal being the result. The weather has lately been so hot and oppres abstainer from the delights of alcohol. I think I mentioned some time ago how cordially our sive that forensic labors have been almost unen Inn of Court dinner men welcome a teetotaler, durable.
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