THE JUDGE’S BLACK CAP

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIX, 28 January 1936, Page 2

THE JUDGE’S BLACK CAP

The practice of our judges, in putting on a black cap when they condemn a criminal to. death, will be found to have a deep significance. Covering the head was in ancient days a sign of mourning. “Hainan hasted to his house, mourning and having his head covered.” (Esth. vi. 12.) In like manner Demosthenes, when insulted by the populace, went borne with his head covered. “And David .... wept as he went up, and had his head covered; . . . and all the people that were with him covered every man his head and they went up, weeping as they went up.” (2 Sam. xv. 30). Darius, too, covered his head on learning of the death of his queen. As far back as the time of Chaucer the most usual colour of mourning was black. When, therefore, the judge puts on the black cap, it is a veiy significant as well as solemn procedure. He puts on mourning, he is about to pronounce the forfeit of a life. And accordingly the act is generally understood "to be significant. It intimates that the judge is about to pronounce no merely registered or suppositious sentence; in the very formula of condemnation he has put himself in mourning for the convicted culprit, as for a- dead , man. The criminal is then left for execution, and unless mercy exerts its sovereign prerogative, lie suffers the sentence of the law. The mourning cap expressively indicates his doom.