A HUMOROUS JUDGE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LVIII, Issue 8940, 14 December 1907, Page 2

A HUMOROUS JUDGE.

Some capital stories of the late Lord Brampton are going the rounds. One concerns a sally between the Judge and a Bishop. The churchman claimed that the episcopal office was higher than the judicial one. on the ground that while a judge could only say "You be hanged!" a bishop ( could say "You be dammed!" The f Jugdge promptly retorted, "But when I say 'you be hanged,' the man is hanged." A more remarkable story, for which he was at one time considered rather callous, concerns his treatment of a man who was condemned to death for a particularly brutal murder. The prisoner was asked whether he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon him. In hoarse tones, full of teror, he declared himself innocent of the crime, and ended a brief but passionate harangue with the words, "May God strike me dead if I Mr Justice Hawkins, who waspPbut to assume the black cap, laid it aside for a moment and assumed an air of expectancy which made every heart in Court stop beating. After an interval which seemed endless, though it was doubtless only a few seconds, he spoke slowly and softly, and said with dreadful irony," As the Almighty has not seen fit to answer your prayer, I will now proceed to pass sentence!"