COURT LOUNGERS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 13289, 5 December 1908, Page 4

COURT LOUNGERS.

(SPECTAIXT WKTTTEJJ FOB "THE riUESS.''* The dispensation of jnstioe, although at times intensely dramatic, is in no way a theatrical show. It is at nil times, even in the Magistrate's Court when there are Justices upon the Bench, a very serious business indeed. Yet it always attracts a crowd of spectators. Each morning they flock to the Police Court, stare at tho drunk of the night before and giggle at the tattered vagrant, unhappy in his state of unwonted cleanliness. They wash them at the Police Station. It must be an unpleasant business.

Even the civil sessions of the Supreme Court, dreary though they be, draw people to them. Why they should is beyond ■comprehension. It is prob- \ ably hot enough outside, yet day after day men will leave the breeze and the j sunlight to foregather in the Court room. For what reason. Thero is but little to be seen. Only a Judge, clad | in his robes of office, a lew barristers, in wig and gown, perhaps four or twelve very bored-looking jurymen, the Registrar writing busily and the Usher nodding quivtlv as ho dreams of days when the world was wider. Thero is nothing to list-en to except a barrister asking apparently pointless questions in a dull, uninterested yoioe, and a witness answering them in an equally uninterested way. That is all, yeb it never fails to draw an audience. Those loungers who attend civil sittings are of tho class that has made sitting a habit and has become past master in the art of ennui. It finds pleasure- in sitting anywhere. It always provides ornaments for the seats in the Square. I thin? that those who belong to it picture Paradise as a place of cushioned seats—free—made joyous with the music of gramaphones. . Of course, even a civil suit can, on occasion, bo interesting , . B'.rt if it is so. it is so solely on account of those interested in it and in spite of its facts. Bear witness a once famous "cause celebre." The circumstances were trivial enough, yet because the parties hfld colonial reputations, people crowded the Court day after day, waiting hours before the doors were opened and hustling and struggling for admission. Each day ladies crowded the law clerks from their scats in the Grand Jury box, and f rod on each others skirts in their cagernees to get places. They, whatever they may have been ordinarily, bpcamo for the time being Court loungers. . . , Whenever tho CriminriJ Sessions open here, the gallery of the Courtroom creaks beneath its burden of loungers. Loafers. quasi-criminala, callow voutlis. cigarette fiends, holidaymakers' (holiday 1). and men who ought to know better, crowd its benches, their faces showing row upon tow and pro-* viding a spectacle such, as can be seen in few other places. Each of the lower classes of the community has sent its representatives to gaze on the splendid spectacle of some poor wretch being tried for Jiis life or his liberty. They shuffle upright, as the usher calls, '■Silence for His Honour the King's Judge," and then sink down and abandon themselves to thedr pleasure as he takes his seat. They crane their necks and thrust their eager faces forward lest they should miss a word that is said, and "their varying expressions I are sights to behold. The "human document" that the the novelists and the writers are so fond of referring to has changed but littlo during th© ajjes as we ■ reckon them. For Nature works in roons, not moments. In a.ll probability the Philistines who made a show of Samson and jeered and marvelled at his strength woro much the same expression as these loungers of to-da.y. Those men who roared tiieir comments and laid their wagers when Paul fought his figlhiwitJi the beasts of Ephesus are certain to have gaped in the isame dull-eyed way as those who grin at a sentence to flogging when one of our judges' delivers it. • -..

These people of our own timo have an excuse that those others lacked. Pope said that the proper study of mankind was man and urged tlat men should devote themselves -to it. These loungers can always allege tlhafc they are students of mankind. It is certain that t3iey have found a good Schoolroom