As Berry and I Were Saying by Dornford Yates Page B

D’you know that fellow always remembers my birthday?’ ‘So he damned well ought to,’ said I. Wild laughed. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said. ‘But where are the nine?’ Not long after that, Wild became Recorder of London: and his old opponent, Henry Dickens, was made Common Serjeant. So the young took precedence of the old.”
    “Was Wild a good Judge?”
    “Not outstanding. He didn’t live very long.”
    “And ‘Long Lawrance’?”
    “He was very sound and very popular. Towards the end, he began to grow very deaf: but he learned the lip language and hardly missed a thing. He was a great character. Being deaf, he was unable to hear his own voice, and he used to say things which he meant for his Marshal’s ear, which were clearly heard by everyone else in court. He was not the best of lawyers, as he well knew. One day at Lewes, Marshall Hall was before him and was pressing a point of law. Now Marshall was a great advocate, but he was a worse lawyer than ‘Long Lawrance’ was: so we were all enjoying ourselves. Upon this particular point, the Judge was against Marshall Hall and told him so. But Marshall Hall persisted. At last ‘Long Lawrance’ got cross. ‘Mr Marshall Hall,’ he said, ‘don’t waste the time of the Court. I have told you that I am against you .’ And then he added in what, I suppose, he intended to be an undertone, ‘I may be a — fool, but I’m against you.’ There was, naturally, a roar of laughter, and Marshall Hall collapsed.”
    “That’s of value,” said Berry. “A touch of nature, you know. Hadn’t Marshall Hall the unfortunate reputation of getting across the Judge?”
    “Yes, he had. More than once I was his junior, and he was always very kind to me. But I’m sure he’ll forgive me for saying that that reputation was not altogether undeserved. But he was a very fine advocate and he had a big success. He was tall and broad and a very handsome man: and he had the most splendid presence of anyone at the Bar.”
    “Who was the best of them all?”
    “Rufus Isaacs. Danckwerts was the finest lawyer of Bench or Bar. But Rufus Isaacs was the most brilliant advocate. He towered above his fellows. He had a great charm of manner – an irresistible charm. Juries could not withstand it. Then, again, he had an incredible memory. I never remember his referring to a note.
    “The first time I ever saw him, I was still at school. Coles Willing took me to see a Trial at Bar. That is a very rare thing. It is the hearing of a criminal case in the Royal Courts of Justice, which are of course Civil Courts.”
    “Why and when?” said Berry.
    “When there is reason to think that, by such a transfer, justice will be better served. In this particular case, The King against Whitaker Wright—”
    “This is history,” said Berry. “Whitaker Wright.”
    “Well, he was up for fraud. He’d been very active in the City, and his advisers felt that it would be impossible to empanel a jury at the Old Bailey which was not prejudiced. But in the Law Courts they could have ‘a special jury’ to try the case. And the Crown agreed.
    “For more than one reason, it was, as you clearly remember, a memorable case. In the first place, Whitaker Wright was a very big noise and he lived for several years in a very big way and, when he fell, he fell with a very big crash. In the second place, throughout the case, the Judge displayed a very definite bias against the accused. 1 always found this strange, for Bigham was a very good Judge – he later became Lord Mersey and President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division. In the third place, Rufus Isaacs, as Attorney General, led for the Crown. Fourthly, within ten minutes of having been found guilty and sentenced to penal servitude, Whitaker Wright died by his own hand. Poison. Fifthly, after his death they found upon him a fully loaded revolver, with which he might very well have shot Bigham dead.
    “I’ll deal with those points in a