A FAMOUS JUDGE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18465, 6 January 1930, Page 5

A FAMOUS JUDGE.

HIS WIT AND HUMOUR. QUOTATIONS IN COURT. When in 1896 Mr Darling, Q.C., was appointed Commissioner of Assize a storm of protest burst, and swelleu into a veritable tornado a year later when he was then only forty-seven, and critics alleged that neither his practice at the Bar nor his political standing warranted such promotion. ! The Press screamed and round-robins were openly circulated in the Temple against this “political jobbery.” Darling himself remained unperturbed by all this pother. It is said that when Augustine Birrell playfully criticised his sensational elevation, Darling retorted: “Well, I can read and write; what more do you want?” Since then Lord Darling has become a national institution. If his name is primarily associated in the popular mind with “Laughter in Court,” that does not alter the fact that he was ever a shrewd, able and humane judge. How one wishes that the author of such sparkling gems as “Scintillae j juris” and “Meditations in a Tea- 1 room” had given us his own autobiography, says “John o’ London Week- i ly.” Born in Essex in 1850, Charles John Darling was such a feeble child that his parents despaired of his life. Too delicate for early schooling, he also missed the University, and, after being articled to a Birmingham solicitor, was called to the Bar when twenty-four. Flirting with journalism and playing ! with politics, he published his “Meditations in a Tea-room” under the pseudonym “M.P.” eight years before he actually entered Parliament —a characteristic, and prophetic, gesture! His annus mirablis was the year 1885, when he married, took silk, and fought his first election, but it was not until 1891 that he w r as returned to Parliament with the nickname “Deptford’s Little Darling.” His journalism was anonymous. One writer records:— Years ago Sir Charles spent many years in an untidy office in Northumberland street. He may remember the two chairs, the single ink-pot, and the scratching of his companion’s pen. There were no tidy brief-boxes, no tidy clerks, in that office; but untidy printers’ boys waited at the door for copy. And the copy produced by Mr Darling, Q.C., was as good as any man’s. He had fallen in with a brilliant but insufficient staff: Cust wa.*> ■ just setting the Pall Mall into its stride, and often a “leader” needed writing when there was no leaderwriter on the premises. Mr Darling obliged! A Painting in Court. Mr Justice Darling’s Court became the Mecca of sensation-seekers of all classes. He was good “copy.” His wit was keen, yet kindly. The Charleswirth, Sievier Pemberton-Billing. and "Mr A” cases all fell to his lot (not undesired. Gossin alleged!), but none gave him more scope for wit than the “Great Romney Picture Case" in 1917, when a New Yorker sued a famous firm of art dealers, (he issue being whether or not a certain picture was that of Mrs Sid dons and her sister painted by Romney. The picture stood on an easel beside the judge, who contrived during this seven-day trial to quote Matthew Arnold, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Disraeli, Dickens, Goldsmith, Tennyson, and Locker-La mp-son--all on the spur of the moment. Glowing testimony of his literary knowledge! It is, of course, as a criminal judge, that Darling’s fame is writ largest, writ in figures of Steinie Morrison, Armstrong. Emma Byron, who stabbed . her stockbroker-lover in Lombard street Post Office, and “Chicago May” , (recently dead), who smiled sweetly [ at him when he sentenced her to fifteen years’ imprisonment for shoot-

ing at Eddie Guerin, whom she had betrayed to the police after his escape from Devil's Island. Dr Crippen’s Wife. Surely his most dramatic case was that of Crippen, which possessed all the ingredients of successful melodrama. Crippen, an American doctor, arrived in London in 1900 as manager of a patent medicine business. His wife, a Pole, possessed a voice of doubtful quality which Crippen had helped her to have trained. Hopes of grand opera fading, she took the name of Belle Elmore and announced her intention of appearing at music halls. But her talents were woefully poor. Not one engagement did she get; yet, although having no possible claim to the description of music hall artist, she became treasurer of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild—a step that was one day to place the rope round Crippen’s neck. Denied fame, Belle Elmore was determined at least to see life. She di-essed, lived, and entertained extravagantly, with the result that the impoverished doctor soon found himself rising early to do the morning housework himself before going to business. Then he fell in love with Ethel Le Neve—and bought some deadly poison. His neighbours accepted his explanation that his wife had gone abroad and died. But her friends of the Music-Hall Guild were less credulous. Their awkward questions and gossip brought Inspctor Dew on the scene. Arrested by Wireless. When portions of a headless boay were found beneath the cellar floor, Crippen and Ethel Le Neve (disguised as a boy) were crossing the Atlantic. The frustration of their attempt to escape was the first practical demonstration of the value of wireless. Such sensational cases as Lord Darling did not try at first instance usually came before him on appeal, amongst 1 them those of Seddon, Casement, and Smith, “the Brides in the Bath” murderer. Once in the Court of Criminal Appeal:— Council was pleading quite seriously that the appellant was a person of good character against whom nothing but murder had been alleged. “Unfortunately.” replied his lordship. “I have had to sentence to death too many persons who bore the highest character to enable me to give that argument more than its due weight.”