MICHAELMAS DAISIES!

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 53, 26 November 1929, Page 10

MICHAELMAS DAISIES!

PAGEANT OF BRITISH JUSTICE WHY ENGLAND WILL REMAIN A MONARCHY Dominion Special Service. [By Nellie M. Scanlan.] London, October 26. The Michaelmas daisies are out, and the Michaelmas sessions are in. Each year the pageant of British justice heralds the opening of the Michaelmas Session of the Courts. You never do anything in England without ceremony, even trying a drunk. That is one reason why England will remain a Monarchy. The people love its pageantry. And there is much that is quaint and spectacular about the administration of the law, apart from what is grim. The High Court opened in a blaze of crimson and ermine, black and gold. In their gorgeous robes, the might of England’s law met at Westminster Abbey for the special service. A number of them, including Sir James Melville, the Solicitor-General, attended High Mass at Westminster Cathedral nearby. London loves its pageantry, and the law, like the stage, has its following. Crowds lined the road from the Abbey to the House of Lords, across which the procession passed. It was a soft autumn day. The faint breeze stirred the old oak tree that seemed to lean against the Abbey, and, .\hower of golden leaves fell fluttering to the ground. . White fleecy clouds swept across the face of the sun, which still had a little summer warmth left. And in every garden there was a riot of Michaelmas daisies. Big Ben struck twelve, and the crowd pressed closer. Soon the Abbey bells chimed a joyous peal, and from the side door of the Abbey came first, the Gentleman Usher, in Court dress, with a sword, followed by the great Gold Mace of the House of Lords, the Great Seal of England, and the Purse, borne on a cushion by the gentlemen of the Lord Chancellor’s staff. The Judges Pass. Next came Lord Sankey, Lord Chancellor of England, in the gorgeous robes of black and gold, a gentleman in dress suit bearing his train. He wears the robes of “Keeper of the King’s Conscience,” for that was the original office of the Lord Chancellor in the days of Cardinal Wolseley and his predecessors. Lord Sankey is tall, and stern, but kindly, and walked erect, his face framed in a full-bottom-ed wig. After him came the chubby little figure of the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Hewart, in scarlet and ermine with a collar of gold. And so they passed in their kneebreeches, and buckled shoes, their lace jabots and lace frills falling over their white kid gloves—all with the full-bottomed wig. After the great ones had passed came the Puisne Judges of Chancery and King’s Bench, in purple robes wrapped about them like a dressing gown, but still the lace frills, the buckled shoes and the wig. To-night most of these will take train to the cities in the counties, where they will be received by uniformed high sheriffs with outriders and trumpeters.

The last group were the K.C.’s in their black silk, their wigs and their lace jabots. I looked on the face of the Law, and I found it strangely hard. One glimpse would convince you that Honesty is the best policy. r “They’re Michaelmas Daisies, all right,” I heard one voice murmur in the crowd. All Sorts, Shapes and Sizes. There were tall, lean men, with legs like canaries, who looked strangely unhappy in their silk stockings, and tried to hide their deficiencies in the folds of their gowns. There were red faces, and stern faces, and men of enormous girth. One had difficulty in keeping the black velvet sash at the point of greatest circumference, his waist. Square jaws and hawkish noses, shrewd eyes, and intellectual foreheads, but I felt that the costume of the law added at least fifty per cent, to this forbidding aspect. Here and there some twinkling kindly eye looked out from benign face, as though contact with the Courts had not lessened its humanity nor its humour.

And so they passed into the House of Lords for a noon-day breakfast. Afterwards the procession entered the Law Courts, but for the moment popular enthusiasm had turned away from them. The great silver RlOl, the world’s largest airship, came floating over London on its trial flight, and all eyes were turned aloft in wonder, as it circled the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. A Survival of Ancient Tinies.

And when the Courts sit, each Judge will enter in his robes, and in his hand he will hold a posey of flowers, and flowers will be strewn on the floor. This is not another manifestation of mob hysteria, spreading flowers at the prisoner’s feet. It is an ancient custom, and dates from the time when Judges carried sweet herbs, and the floor was strewn with them, to check the spread of gaol fever, which so many wretched prisoners contracted. In these gay little posies to-day we perpetuate the memory of those ghastly tragedies of our primitive system of justice. _