WISDOM ON THE BENCH

Evening Star, Issue 18810, 8 December 1924, Page 2

WISDOM ON THE BENCH

GREAT, JUDGES OF TO-DAY. It is doubtful (says ‘John o’ London’s Weekly’) whether the present occupants of the' Judicial Bench play quite so prominent a part on tho public stage as did their predecessors of a generation ago. Wo know their names, and their respective, offices, lint ns men we think very little about them, and we seldom picture them to ourselves without their wigs and their ermine. LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. The visitor to the courts naturally goes to see the Lbrd Chief Justice. Lord Hewart has had a. meteoric career. Born in 1870, the son of ordinary Lancashire middle-class parents, he reached his present exalted position at the early age of fifty-two. With him the legal profession was a happy afterthought, He began his education at the Manchester Grammar School; after which lie had a brilliant academic career at University College, Oxford. Then followed ton years of strenuous journalism in London; and ft is probably fair to attribute the wonderful lucidity and high literary excellence of the judgments which ho to-day delivers with such an appearance of ease to the training which he thus obtained. Called to the Bar in 1902, ho soon became famous on tho Northern Circuit. Then lie entered Parliament, as Liberal member for Manchester, Ho is a true Lancashire man, and can sway the emotions of the people by speaking to them in their own dialect. When Lord Birkenhead ascended tho Woolsack in 1918 Gordon Hewart succeeded him as Attor-ney-General, and from that post he was raised to tho Chief Justiceship in 1922. Lord Hewart is quite unspoilt, a hard worker, simple in all his tastes. He cares nothing for tho popular diversions of society. Golf ho enjoys in moderation; but his chief delight is to sit with his family listening to the pierrots at one of the South Coast health resorts. “A MOST HUMANE JUDGE.”

Mr Justice Hill is famous as the judge who tried the “ Russell case ” on its second hearing. But this is not the kind of fame that Sir Maurice Hill would seek or welcome. With Sir Henry Duke he shares the miscellaneous business of the Probate,, Divorce, and Admiralty Court, and it is no secret that be abhors the work of the Divorce Court and, loves that of the Admiralty. Of this the onlooker who sees his testy way of dealing with parties in tire former, and the almost uproarious joviality of his conduct in the latter, can have no doubt. Of all our judges Mr Justice Hill is perhaps the most human. Extremely learned, energetic, capable, and industrious, he dislikes the artificial pomp which pertains to his office. From his beautiful home at Wimbledon he comes every morning by train to Waterloo, then strolls up the Strand to the courts, wearing the shabbiest of soft hats and smoking the most disreputable of pipes. Ever since his Balliol days be has been a keen amateur actor; and even now he delights in having Shakespeare readings at home, always reserving for himself the most comic character. In the vacations ho lives in a small and remote Welsh village, where he devotes most of his time to fly-fishing. Although more than sixty years of age, ho lakes a daily plunge into a deep pool in the river which flows by his house. EXPERT IN CRIME. Mr Justice Avory is generally, though perhaps not quite justly, regarded as the most severe of our judges. Twenty years of office as Crown Prosecutor at the Old Bailey made him the greatest living master of criminal law; and to his lot has consequently fallen a very large proportion of difficult and disagreeable criminal cases to try. Only the other day, at two assizes, it fell to his lot to condemn to death the murderers Vaqnier and Mahon. His stern, ascetic face is the terror of evildoers; and dread is not diminished by his dry and caustic humor. Yet in truth Six Horace Avory is not a harsh man. In private life he is kindly and popular, and on the bench he is scrupulously careful and just. He has always been a keen hunter, and is frequently to be seen at race meetings. When an undergraduate at Cambridge he captained the Corpus Christi boat, hut now his chief exercise is golf. He is seventythree years of age, but so vigorous as to promise to illustrate the belief that judges are a specially long-lived race. A KEEN MIND. Mr Justice Shearman war brought into great prominence by his trial, two years ago, of the murderers of General Sir Henry Wilson, and of By waters and Mrs Thompson. He is now sixty-seven year’s of age, hut there is no keener mind on the bench. To hear him tearing in pieces the sophistical arguments of learned counsel is an intellectual treat of the first order. In hsi younger days Montague Shearman was a great athlete, president of the Oxford University Club, a keen Rugby player, and amateur champion in the 100yds and quarter-mile. Ho is the author of a book on football. He is very tall and still active. His face is pale, and easily lights up with a kindly smile, in which the spariding blue eyes play a part. Contrary to the usage of Bench and Bar, he wears a moustache. In knowledge of crime, and in ability to bring it home to the criminal, he is second only to Mr Justice Avory, and ho is almost always a sitting member of the Court of Criminal Appeal. Mr Justice M r Cardio is rapidly winning fame, although he is the youngest of the judges. Ho is known us the “ Bachelor Judge.” In “ case law ” he is prodigiously learned, and his considered judgments always sparkle with epigram. His tastes and recreations are aesthetic, and this, together with his intimate knowledge of French, makes him the successor of Lord Darling, whose court he has also now inherited. Ho enjoys a long walk and an eloquent sermon.