K.C.'S COME TO BLOWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6492, 11 April 1908, Page 3

K.C.'S COME TO BLOWS.

AMAZING SCENE -IN COURT. A scene of a kind which, happily, is extremely rare in English Courts occurred On Wednesday, February 26th, in the Lord Chief Justice's Court, London, where the Railway and Canal Commission is sitting to hear the application of the ’ Great Northern and the Great Central Railway Companies for permission to carry out the agreement of the 3rd December last. The morning was occupied with arguments on behalf of the two companies. After lunch Mr Vesey Knox, K.C., returning to the ©eats' reserved for King's Counsel a little before the members of the Commission came back, found Mr John Roskill, K.C., reading one of the law-books, and entered into a dispute with him about the removal of some papers# Ere long they came to blows. Sir Knox—so it is alleged—telling Mr Roskill h© would throw him out of the iseat. The two struggled together for a moment. One of the juniors on the seat behind endeavoured to draw Mr Knox back, while Sir Robert Finlay spoke to both the counsel, engaged. Then Sir Vesey Knox declared in a passion, that Mr Roskill was "an insolent, despicable cur/' and the latter retorted with a blow, which was quickly returned. Ultimately Sir Samuel Evans, the Solicitor-General, came across the Court, and peace was at last restored by Mr J. D. Fkzgerald, K.C., taking a seat between the two enraged lawyers. Mr Knox appears in the case (with Mr Aspinall) for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company.