A Plain-spoken Judge.

Otago Witness, Issue 2667, 26 April 1905, Page 74

A Plain-spoken Judge.

A man who has the instinct for what is the right thing to he done, and who speaks good sense in plain language, may not be learned or eloquent, but he will be ~k successful advocate before a jury of commonplace men. Such a man was Samuel Martin. He made no pretensions to great legal learning, and was indifferent to the arts of advocacy, but his common sense and plain directness of si^eech caused him to be known as a "winner of verdicts."

After he bad been promoted to the bench, he once asked a young lawyer how he pro. gre&sed in his law.

"I find its complications very pvizzling, my lord," was the answer.

"Nonsense,'' said Baron Martin. "Bring your common sense to bear on it, man. That's what I always do, and I generally find- I'm right."

In an action for breach of promise, tried before him, the plaintiff's counsel was examining the plaintiff with an excess of tedious preliminaries. Baron Martin, becoming impatient, took the witness. "Listen to me, young woman," sairl he. "Now, did this young) fellow promise to marry you?" "Yes, my lord, he did." "Has he married you?" "No, my lord, he has not." "Has he refused to many you?" "Yes, my lord, he has." "Tfeere/ 7 said the judge, turning to the

counsel, "what more do you want? That's your case, isn't it?" lit a c«,~e to recover damages from a railway company for loss of cattle carried as freight, the company pleaded that "they were carried at owner's risk for less freight." '"You had the man's money,"' interrupted tho judge, "and you killed his beasts. Why don't you pay him for them like honest men?"'

He hated prolixity. Once, while sitting in chambers, he was asked to make an order for a party in a- suiL to answer a nwnber of interrogatives. "How many are. there?" he asked. "Twenty, my lord." "I shan't make an order for any man to answer 20 interrogatives. You may ask him half a clozen. and take which you please." His sentences on criminals, like his judgments, were short. "You are an old villain, and you'll just take 10 years' penal servitude," -aid he, on sentencing a man convicted of his tenth felony.