WHY JUDGES WEAR WIGS

Evening Star, Issue 20996, 9 January 1932, Page 2

WHY JUDGES WEAR WIGS

SOME ODDITIES OF THE LAW , “It is my belief that the administration of justice in the Republic is stupid, dishonest, and against all reason and equity—and from this judgment I except no more than thirty judges, including two men upon the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States.- . . . The nation would be unutterably shocked by the proposition (with proof) that a majority of its judges are ignoramuses, and that a respectable minority of them axe scoundrels.” > So runs portion of one of those fulminations periodically hurled by Mr H. L* Mencken against the American people* to the great pleasure of the American people and to the profit of Mr Mencken (writes “ 6.G..” in the Melbourne ‘ Argus ’). We of the British Empire are prepared to accept the judgment, not because we know anything about, the administration of justice in the United States or the public or private characters of the gentlemen who administer it,but because the American people have been pleased to make an advertisement ! of the gaucheries and grotesqueries off the Tennessee Monkey Trial and similar ) oddities. We are ready to believe that , a people whose legal representatives get into their shirt sleeves to try a man for having taught the theories of evolution is capable of anything. Yet, is there anything funnier in a man in his shirt sleeves waving a cabbage palm fan than in a man crowned with a horsehair wig and garbed in-at black gown? Whatever feelings we may experience when we see the wig and gown, they are not feelings of amusement. The unhappy wretch who peers over the top of the criminal dock does not burst into laughter at the sight | of an urbane gentleman opposite him arrayed in a costume of red and white which appears to be an obvious imitation of lather Christmas; nor does he giggle at the - sight of lugubrious-look-ing gentlemen in dark raiment who appear to be forced to cover their bald' heads lest they catch cold. The reason for this tolerance appears to be that we have always thought of I our judges in scarlet and ermine, however little time they spend m them, and we have always thought of our lawyers in wig and gown, however small a proportion of the profession, wears them. These are the pictures we have always conjured up when we have spoken of the Bench and the Bar, and there is nothing funny in the picture which has been familiar for hundreds of years. .... Although it is tru© that th© costum© of th© law has been of th© sam© lugubrious character for the last few cen- , turies, it has not always been so. was once said by a very learned judge; that the Bar went into mourning at the death of Queen Anne and had remained, in mourning ever since. In fact, it j was a little earlier, at the time of the 1 death of Mary 11., in 1604, that the J Bench and the Bar were required to ( participate in the general State mourning. It was apparently then found convenient to remain in black, particularly as it had become the custom to eschew the wearing of anything but sober colours in court. A century before, in 1574, in the reign of Elizabeth ,- the benchers of Grey’s Inn had issued an ordinance forbidding the wearing off gowns of a bright colour. In 1559 the judges had forbidden the fellows off Lincoln Inn to wear beards of more than a fortnight’s growth, but the tellows, after having given the new Bys- } tem a fair trial, asserted their’rights to; cultivate and wear beards fully and freely. The judges, perhaps finding jn, practice that the computation of a fortnight’s growth was too knotty a lem even for them.; retreated with as good grace as possible. In the merrie England of a previous age there bad been no such restraints.-1 In the fifteenth century Langland, m! his ‘ Piers Plowman,’ had written:— Shall no serieant for his service wear no silk hood, . Nor pelure on his cloak for pleading at the Bar.

Other references of the time, notably, some in Chaucer, show that it was the custom to remunerate the sergeant-at-law not merely by the payment of fee# but also by the gift of rich robes. On special occasions the sergeants and the judges who had been sergeants were magnificent figures, decked out in scarlet gowns with blue sleeves , laced with small bars, carrying a white furred hood upon the shoulder and a white lawn or linen coif on the head. In 1635 the judges . and sergeants came to an understanding upon the colour of their robes on special occasions—a black cloth for term time, violet for the Court or on holidays, scarlet for State occasions, and black silk for trial at nisi prius. In the criminal courts and on State occasions you may still see the “ red judges ” in their scarlet and ermine. In the seventeenth century, the coif or head covering was hidden by a black cap. You may see the type in the picture of the trial of Charles I. Then with the Restoration in 1660 there came over with Charles 11. from France the wig, whicli was to remain part of the dress of the English gentleman for more than a century. > In the wigs of i the sergeants amd the judges there wasl left a small aperture on top through! which appeared a round patch of white j lawn partially covered with black. If i ever you should catch a judge asleep) in his wig you will still see the aperture i at the top, but with a bottom to it to keep out the cold. . ■ Tlie wig was not accepted without protest. One famous judge, Sir Matthew Hale, rebelled against the newfangled idea and refused to, wear it.On the other hand, it was claimed that it would “ lend gravity to the meanest countenance,” and the legal profession, without admitting that it possessed among its numbers such countenances, adopted it. Without it a barrister cannot be “ seen ” in court should a judge feel particularly blind. Together with the wig goes the court coat, which follows the style of the. reign of George 11. The white bands falling from the collar had superseded the more picturesque ruff about the time of James I* Something of the awe-inspiring qualities of the law must have gone when, counsel were forbidden to wear rapiers in court, though witnesses must have felt considerably more at home, .with this change the sartorial evolution of the modern British lawyer was complete/ Although from time to time attacks have been made both from inside and [ outside the profession upon the custom of wearing robes, there is little likelihood of a change in a practice which has been found to have manifest advantages. That such advantages exist has wen recognised not only in Brutish countries and in the Old World* but also in the newer countries*: in which the tendency has been to find little of value in tradition.Even in the United States the practice has been adopted by the judges or the Supreme Court at Washington, and it is looked upon with favour in the other Federal courts. The United States has found that it is not good to tamper, with the dignity and majesty of the ( law, even in the outward and visible signs of its administration.