THE CHIEF JUSTICE. By Delta.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XIV, Issue 1091, 11 December 1857, Page 4

THE CHIEF JUSTICE. By Delta.

We extract-the following cleverly written sketch from the 'Sydney Empire' : — What would the monks have done with him had he been born two or three centuries after the Conquest ? Those noble old gentlemen, having as high an estimate of the value of real estate as the noble old gentlemen who in this Age enjoy the possession of monastic properties, cherished lawyers. They had some very learned ones ; in fact, so learned that the labours of seven or eight centuries have beer, devoted, almost in vain, to the extinction of their subtle contrivances. Sir Edward Coke says they had of their counsel the best learned men they could get ; but still it is suggested what would they have done with Sir Alfred Stephen if j they could have got him ? In the monastery of reading —in that of Durham, with Abbot Wulketulus at Crow- ( land, he would have been feasted and honoured as a | nuncio— for in vain would the statutes of mortmain have been passed had the monks possessed this treasure reserved for a sceptical generation seven or eight centuries later. Imagine Sir Alfred for one moment in the great scriptory of Glastonbury with Father Abbot and Secretary glancing with silent satisfaction over Mag. Cart. 9 Hen. 111. c. 36. Imagine our Chief Justice suggesting some evasive contrivance infinitely more effective than that settled by the statute de religiosis. How he would have puzzled the Parliaments ! how he would have rejoiced the priests ! If he had resolved on creating a system of fictitious proceedings, he would have made them so exquisitely complicated that no jury under the statute of Westminster 2nd. would know what they had to try — no judge could have informed them,— in fact, no trial could be had. How loyally he would have laughed at the King's writ of ad quoddamnum, and how the barons would have damned him. But what would the monks have done with him ? They would have elected him, under the representative system of the Benedictine rule, Father Abbot ; they would have written upon vellum with letters of gold all his legal opinions, and when he died the lawyers might have stood a chance of having a patron saint (a canonized being with a general retainer for the profession in the other world) under the title of Saint Alfred the Subtle. But without speculating at any greater length on the loss the monks sustained, and the additional complication English jurisprudence escaped by his not^ being born till the beginning of this century, see him administering the law of Engiand in the Supreme Court of New, South Wales. And first of all, what sort of person does the Chief Justice seem to be. Notwithstanding his possible monastic successes, he has not by any means a sacerdotal expression, He looks about twenty years younger than he really is, *nd his actions are characterised by a certain sprightliness about ten years lighter than his looks. He has the remarkable faculty of paying the greatest attention to two or three persons, or a half-dozen varied occupations, at the same moment of time. For instance, he is giving the best advice possible to his youthful associate, listening to an argument of counsel, directing the tip 4aff to discharge some neglected duty, and devising some plan in domestic architecture (for which department of art he has a peculiar taste), without at all being distracted by the opposite character of such occupations; and accomplishes all most successfully within a few minute I*.1 *. Observe him in one of his playful moods (and it may be here observed that a man of better temper never occupied a seat upon the Bench), parrying with some bore of a counsel, who seeks a judicial admission that something is law which looks, indeed, very like it, but which it would not be safe, without consideration, to uphold. The Chief Justice answers by suggesting a question. He "Rupposes" a ca>e ; picks up his mate rials with miraculous ease out of the jury-box, or from amongst the juniors present ; extemporises the most puzzling sets of pleadings with the rapidity which characterises Polonius' speech on introducing the players j and, having gone through the whole matter in an inconceivably short space of time, suddenly stops, and asks the amazed advocate for his opinion on the whole case. It he declines the responsibility of advising upon such supposititious proceedings, the judge immediately dacides, and generally so contracts the case that his decision must, in point of law, justify a half- hinted expression of his own opinion. If, on the other hand, the counsel attempts to argue the supposed ense, then woe be to that counsel ! He first of all finds himself bogged in the groundwork of facts over which the light figure on the Bench has skipped with a truly Terpsii chorian grace ; and sits like a stage Ariel on a rock contemplating a floundering Caliban. The counsel on emerging from the facts, loses himself in the Jaw ap plicable to the case, and finally apprehendi, by a little judicial assistance, that he has almost entirely mistaken the matter. His Honor's charges to juries in criminal cases are perhaps the most remarkable addresses to be heard in Australian courts. The jury are, in one pnrt of the charge, furnished with innumerable circumstances justifying an acquittal of the prisoner, - a nd in another portion informed that more unmistakable indications of guilt than the same circumstances, looked upon in a different light, perhaps never presented themselves in a case before ; the consequence of which difficulty is that -the unfortunate jury being only possessed of one light, and incapable bi seeing^ the case as it ought to be seen, are left in that state of doubt, as to guilt or innocence, which is always the great object of professional exertion. Notwithstanding, however, these, peculiarities of his Honor, he may be said, without danger of the slightest offence to his learned brethren, to be eminently the first lawyer in this country. In that elegant political drawing-room in Macquarie street with its thrones, waxlighte, mimic chancellor and ancient gentlemen, his reputation as a lawyer is supposed to have suffered. ' A distinguished Indian (who might as well, by the way. have settled down at Delhi), has accidentally fallen into a position of political, or rather egislative antagonism to Sir Alfrpd Stenhen. Perhaps, our. Chief Justice is not one ef thu fi.-t parliamentary draughtsmen in the world— (having by far too much ability for an occupation of practically so mechanical a nature) — and if he still persists in introducing bills of a rather revolutionary character as regards the law of real property, he may expose himself to the amusing as-

•aults of his judicial rival. But it ii ppisible the Indian may bring in a bill some day or other— and when he does, an opportunity will be afforded to the unprofessional gentlemen of the Assembly, of being present at a parliamentary dissection accomplished by Sir Aifred with the most delicate of legal scalpels. The Chief Justice it, it may be Bafely affirmed, as highly respected and as affectionately regarded a« any of his learned predecessors could have been. He de. seryedly stands high in the estimation of the country, and if within a. lew years a higher office in his profession than that which he now so worthily fills should be created in this country, he would doubtless be called to ccoupy it amidst the universal congiatulations of his fellow- citizem.