FAMOUS LAW COURT

Taranaki Daily News, 5 January 1935, Page 7

FAMOUS LAW COURT

CENTENARY OF OLD BAILEY. MANY CHANGES IN 100 YEARS. A fanfare of trumpets startled the pigeons and passers-by near the Old Bailey in . the middle of the morning of November 2. They stopped and stared, and found two trumpeters posted on the Old Bailey steps, blowing with puff-ed-out cheeks and swelling chests for the arrival of the Lord Chancellor. The Old Bailey was celebrating its 100th birthday, and marked the occasion with as solemn a party as one can imagine, even in a Central Criminal Court, says a woman correspondent of the Daily Mail, - The Lord Chancellor, Lord Sankey, arrived in state. The judges and barristers arrived more soberly, in discreet, legal-looking motor-cars. The King’s Justices were each presented with a bouquet of rosette-like dahlias in lacepaper holders. The Old Bailey -has existed in its present form as the Central Criminal Court for one hundred years. To mark the centenary, Lord Sankey, in the presence of the judges, city aidermen, Criminal Court barristers, the Lord Mayor and the Bishop of London, Dr. WinningtonIngram, unveiled a modest bronze tablet in the wall of the vast marblefloored first-floor landing. The marble hall was chequered black and white as a flock of magpies by the gowns and wigs of a large congregation of barristers, and scarlet as a military review with the robes of the aidermen and judges. The judges wore wigs. The aidermen were wigless, but they had the alternative splendour of cable collars on their robes. The Lord Chancellor and the Bishop of London got tired of theirs during the speeches and put them on the floor, the better to listen to the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Hewart, and the At-torney-General, Sir Thomas Inskip, K.C., delivering their memorial addresses.

Lord Sankey, in unveiling the tablet, said that at the end of the 18th century there were 200 crimes punishable by ddath, and even little children were treated without any distinction from hardened criminals. At the Old Bailey a boy, aged nine, was sentenced “to be hanged by the neck until he was dead” for stealing goods valued at 2d from a shop window. Lord Hewatt paid a notable tribute to Mr. Justice Avory. “It is a great privilege,” he said, “to see here to-day Mr. Justice Avory, full of years and honour, a great master of the criminal law, and to everybody who is anywhere Engaged in the work of the law an example, pattern and inspiration.” The birthday party was continued at night in the hall of the Middle Temple, when the legal dignitaries met again—with a host of distinguished guests and without their bouquets—for a lengthy memorial bariquet.