Page 3 Advertisements Column 1

Evening Star, Issue 14574, 24 May 1911, Page 3

JUDICIAL WIT. We livo in a serious age. Mr Asquith has been questioned in Parliament with reference to a remark made by Mr Justice Avory, at the Leeds Assizes, that the parties in a (mse could appeal to the House of Lords, “if there is one.” The Premier said that the learned Judge had informed him that the remark was made in the spirit of pleasantry, and only intended for the counsel to whom it was addressed. Mr Justice Grantham, summing up in a libel case, said wo had passed through the Stone Age, and we had passed through the Bronze Age. He thought the present' age ought to be called the Age of Brass. the Courts had very little to da but to try cases arising out of people being “cheeky” or “brassy” or telling lise. ‘‘We arc constantly trying the.se cases for libel or slander,” His Lordship continued. “It ‘•iS a grave question if, in all the trumpery disputes of ordinary life, when a person says something unguardedly that he should not have said, juries should be occupied for days and days to determine whether two or three words come within the law of libel or slander.” Imposing a fine of £2OO and a year’s imprisonment (ten years, if sold to a Power), the U.S.A. Parliament has I passed a Foreign Spy Bill against photographing or making drawings of battleahuje, eto- I