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LIMERICKS AND LAW

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LIMERICKS AND LAW Judge Owen as Poet. I ROUNDED OATHS. I BY LLOYD MEYRICK County-court week in Cardiff is always a gay time for everybody but the liti- gants and, perhaps, the advocates. The humour of Judge Owen is so unexpected and surprising that graver men smite after him in vain. In a few hours the stock of laughter is exhausted, and the remainder of the time is spent in weak cackles and short hysterical yelps. On Wednesday his .honour, (however, sur- passed himself. I have long been acquainted with his polished periods and sparkling epigrams, his terse wisdom and pointed jest, but it comes as a surprise to learn of an unsuspected vein of poetry. It is true that as yet there is some- thing modest and crude about the Muse, but, no doubt, time will strengthen the poetic flight. Even a limerick contains the seedling that may blossom to a whole poesy of rich effort. To be fair, however, will the learned judge allow the officials and advocates to "cap" his own inspired output? Behind the almost ecclesias- tical gravity of the Official Receiver lurks many a gay quip, and the Regis- trar, I verily believe, could easily beat that touching story about "a young woman from Chichester." The learned judge ihas whetted the appetite of the public, and it looks forward to greater sport in the future. At the next court may we expect in miniature a re-produc- tion of the scene in "Tannhauser," when advocates may twang the lyre for judg- ments instead of talking dry law and common-sense. The builders of the law courts have, I fear, made no provision for this new and startling departure of the judge. There will be no room for the crowd of delighted listeners, and his honour's latest limerick will be bandied from tongue to tongue, as in the old days was the latest effort of Pasquin. The learned judge's court has always been popular with a sedate, quiet, and unaggressive popularity, as befits the high concerns of Sir Antic the Law, but this popularity pales before the coming uproarious time. The judge's eternal freshness of heart will always save him from the recogni- tion of the bitterness of the line, "Dim with the mist of years, grey flits the shade of power," and less fortunate men can only lend laughter to an all-oonquer- ing vitality. No doubt, the new surroundings have added a quicker zest to the administra- tion of law in Cardiff, and we may expect his ihonour's example to be followed by our Great Unpaid. We will have, say, Alderman Carey bursting out in the police-court with; There was a young woman of Exeter, And a happy young Tneyn sat next to her; and inviting his colleagues to fill in the next two lines. There is no limit to the gay possibilities of the situation, and I deeply regret that I have retired from the legal arena. In my time the law was so dull, and I even suspected his honour of endorsing the sentiment of the line, "Fools are my theme, let satire be my song." A thousand welcomes to "a young woman from Chichester," who, no doubt, will always be a source of inspiration to young lawyers. They may do away with their patron saint and worship at the shrine of their patroness. The county-court circuit is, indeed, for- tunate in having as presiding luminary a gentleman who is at once a lawyer and a wit, and about whom it can never be said: The solemn fop, significant and bodge; A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge. To turn to another aspect of the pro- ceedings on Wednesday. "Did you hear the oath?" said the high bailiff to a very deaf defendant who was being sworn. "No, but he took it," retorted Judge Owen, who observed the defen- dant kiss the Book, and the court broke into a broad smile. From his vast expe- rience the judge, no doubt, knows that there are many little dodges in the wit- ness-box. I have heard a man say that he was not bound by what he said' because he did not hear the oath said 1 This is a very ancient device. An Abys- sinian chief, who had sworn an oath he disliked, has been seen to scrape it ofF his tongue and spit it out. There are still places in Germany where the false witness reckons to escape the spiritual consequences of perjury by crooking one finger, to make it, I suppose, not a straight but a crooked oath, or he puts his left hand to his side to neutralise what the right hand is doing. Here is the idea of our "over the left," but so far as I know this has come down with us to mere schoolboy's shuffling. I think it was Paley, remarking on the different forms of swearing in different countries, who does not scruple to say that they are "in no country in the world, I believe, worse contrived either to convey the mean- ing or impress the obligation of an oath than in our own." It would be far better if we did away with all form of oath and declaration. Once a witness begins his evidence before a duly constituted court he ought to be liable from the very fact to all the consequences of perjury. In a court lately a little girl was asked the usual preliminary question as to the conse-1 quenoe of swearing falsely, and answered in due form, Please, sir, I should go to burning Hell." Unluckily, however, the unusual question was then put, how she knew that, which brought the reply: Oh, please, another girl outside told me I was to say so." It is bar tradition that years ago the most sarcastic of English judges put the whole matter in a nut- shelL The question having been asked of a child witness if she knew what would become of her when she died, she answered simply, Don't know, sir" whereupon the judge said, "Well, gentJe- men, no more do I know, but the child's evidence cannot be taken." The Canon Law expressly forbade the exacting of an oath from children under fourteen-pueri ante annos XIV. non cogantuT jurare. As Mr. Tylor points out, this prohibition is derived from yet earlier law. The rough old Norsemen would not take oaths from children, as comes out so quaintly in the Saga of Baldur, where the goddess made all the beasts and birds and trees swear they would not harm her, but the little mistle- toe only she craved no oath from, for she thought it was too young. Evidence of young children is in this country accepted with great caution, and it may be said the mere capacity (apart alto- gether from inclination) to state facts correctly only comes with years, discip- line, and education. It may be said that the natural inclination of many people is to lie, but, however, I have no space further ito enlarge on the subject to-day.

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