EXPENSIVE ROBES AND WIG

Southland Times, Issue 23677, 28 November 1938, Page 16

EXPENSIVE ROBES AND WIG

HIGH COST OF JUDGE’S REGALIA Expensive changes in his wardrobe must be made by a new King s Bench Judge when he is appointed, as Mr Roland Oliver and Mr R. P. CroomJohnson have been, writes Mr F. C. Green in The Evening News, London. To be fully equipped he must spend about £4OO. . , Peep into his lordship’s wardrobe, and see the impressive array. Here are robes of scarlet, of black and of violet; thick robes for the winter and thin ones for the summer, and mantles with ermine and vari-coloured silk. In drawers are orderly arrays of white neck bands, ruffles, scarves, girdles, gloves and silk stockings. A collection of shoes is adorned with a variety of metal buckles. There may also be a velvet Levee outfit, with sword. And then, the crowning jflory, his lordship’s full-bottomed wig. This alone costs £2O. . „ , .u Speaking once of the man, or the miracle, who is called a Judge, Lord Hewart, the Lord Chief Justice, said. “To satisfy in patience and in silence his conflicting cravings and obligations, he must have recourse to his full-bot-tomed wig. The stimulative advantages of that head-dress were recognized by the wise men of old when they set it upon the head of the Sphinx in an effort to represent the first and last of the mysteries that no one could iatnom. Certainly the Judge, robed and bewigged, adds dignity and an impressive touch of tradition to the Court. Contrast this—if we may believe the films-with the ' stormy scenes in an American court presided over by a judge wearing a lounge suit and armed 1 ’to one authority judicial robes today differ only slightly from those of the Plantagenet Judges, and are identical in colour and texture with those worn by Chie Justice Fortescue, who in the time of Henry VI sat in judgment among the hucksters shops, in Old Westminster Hall.