Read Online As Berry and I Were Saying by Dornford Yates - Free Book Online
Authors: Dornford Yates
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minute. And now let’s go back. Coles Willing took me into a court which was crammed. Isaacs was on his feet, summing up for the Crown. He impressed me immediately. He had a charming manner and a delightful voice. I could see him well and, though he was dealing with figures and date after date, he never once glanced at a note. (They used to say of him that, such was his power of concentration, he could ask a question in cross-examination with the answer he had in view six questions ahead. He was certainly very much feared, and many a case was settled, when the other side learned that Isaacs had been retained.) I don’t know how long we’d been there, when I saw the Judge raise his eyes to look at the clock. Isaacs saw him, too, and immediately stopped. ‘Your lordship is thinking of adjourning?’ ‘I think so, Mr Attorney. I think you’ll be some time yet.’ ‘I’m afraid I shall, my lord.’ ‘Very well. Until two o’clock.’ Then the Judge left the Bench, and Whitaker Wright stood up.
“I hadn’t seen him till then, for he was in the well of the court. And he turned to look at the clock, so I saw him well. His face was the colour of cigar-ash, and the sneer lines, as they are called, looked as if they had been drawn by a finger dipped in blue chalk. Any one must have been sorry for such a man. About twenty-four hours later, the jury found him guilty and the Judge sent him down.
“Now, had he been at the Old Bailey, he would have been in the charge of warders, and warders know their stuff. But they don’t have warders at the Law Courts: so the tipstaves looked after him, and looking after prisoners was not in their line. Consequently, each morning, when he surrendered to his bail, he was never searched. Warders might not have found the poison, but they would have found the revolver. Consequently, again, when, after his sentence, he desired to visit the lavatory, a tipstaff took him there – and waited outside . So Whitaker Wright took his poison without any fuss. Now the Judge may have been in no danger. Whitaker Wright may have thought of shooting himself. The fact remains that, because there was no dock, he sat where suitors sit – in the well of the court. There was no tipstaff with him, and the Judge was twelve feet away. And he must have deeply resented the bias which Bigham showed. However, he didn’t do it, though a good many people thought it was in his mind.”
“Otherwise, Bigham was a good Judge?”
“A first-rate Judge. Strangely enough, on one other famous occasion, he put a foot wrong. That was at the Old Bailey…
“A shocking case of child-cruelty came to be tried. What was more shocking still was that the woman indicted was gently born and bore an honourable name. The hearings in the police court had been very naturally splashed, and feeling all over England was running very high. I may be wrong, but I think the case was transferred to the Old Bailey, because it was felt that in her own County the prisoner could not have had a fair trial.
“Well, she went down: but, instead of sending her to jail, Bigham imposed a fine of fifty pounds. On the face of it, such a sentence was absurd, for it was a very bad case. What may have been in his mind was that the publicity the case had received had finished the accused, that her honourable name was now mud and that she could never again show her face in any company that knew who she was. Be that as it may, the indignation of the public knew no bounds, and the old cliché of there being one law for the rich and another for the poor was on every poor person’s lips. For that reason alone, such a sentence was mischievous. She was tried, I think, in December, and the Drury Lane Pantomime opened on Boxing Day. In this there was a good song which a clever girl sang very well. ‘I don’t want to be a lady.’ The last lines of every verse landed a different punch, and the last of all ran:
‘And if justice can be downed
‘At the price of
“I hadn’t seen him till then, for he was in the well of the court. And he turned to look at the clock, so I saw him well. His face was the colour of cigar-ash, and the sneer lines, as they are called, looked as if they had been drawn by a finger dipped in blue chalk. Any one must have been sorry for such a man. About twenty-four hours later, the jury found him guilty and the Judge sent him down.
“Now, had he been at the Old Bailey, he would have been in the charge of warders, and warders know their stuff. But they don’t have warders at the Law Courts: so the tipstaves looked after him, and looking after prisoners was not in their line. Consequently, each morning, when he surrendered to his bail, he was never searched. Warders might not have found the poison, but they would have found the revolver. Consequently, again, when, after his sentence, he desired to visit the lavatory, a tipstaff took him there – and waited outside . So Whitaker Wright took his poison without any fuss. Now the Judge may have been in no danger. Whitaker Wright may have thought of shooting himself. The fact remains that, because there was no dock, he sat where suitors sit – in the well of the court. There was no tipstaff with him, and the Judge was twelve feet away. And he must have deeply resented the bias which Bigham showed. However, he didn’t do it, though a good many people thought it was in his mind.”
“Otherwise, Bigham was a good Judge?”
“A first-rate Judge. Strangely enough, on one other famous occasion, he put a foot wrong. That was at the Old Bailey…
“A shocking case of child-cruelty came to be tried. What was more shocking still was that the woman indicted was gently born and bore an honourable name. The hearings in the police court had been very naturally splashed, and feeling all over England was running very high. I may be wrong, but I think the case was transferred to the Old Bailey, because it was felt that in her own County the prisoner could not have had a fair trial.
“Well, she went down: but, instead of sending her to jail, Bigham imposed a fine of fifty pounds. On the face of it, such a sentence was absurd, for it was a very bad case. What may have been in his mind was that the publicity the case had received had finished the accused, that her honourable name was now mud and that she could never again show her face in any company that knew who she was. Be that as it may, the indignation of the public knew no bounds, and the old cliché of there being one law for the rich and another for the poor was on every poor person’s lips. For that reason alone, such a sentence was mischievous. She was tried, I think, in December, and the Drury Lane Pantomime opened on Boxing Day. In this there was a good song which a clever girl sang very well. ‘I don’t want to be a lady.’ The last lines of every verse landed a different punch, and the last of all ran:
‘And if justice can be downed
‘At the price of
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