Kitabı oku: «Nuts and Nutcrackers», sayfa 14

A NUT FOR “LAW REFORM.”

f all the institutions of England there is scarcely one more lauded, and more misunderstood, than trial by jury. At first blush, nothing can seem fairer and less objectionable than the unbiassed decision of twelve honest men, sworn to do justice. They hear patiently the evidence on both sides; and in addition to the light derivable from their own intelligence, they have the directing charge of the judge, who tells them wherein the question for their decision lies, what are the circumstances of which they are to take cognizance, and by what features of the case their verdict is to be guided. Yet look at the working of this much-boasted privilege. One jury brings in a verdict so contrary to all reason and justice, that they are sent back to reconsider it by the judge; another, more refractory still, won’t come to any decision at all, and get carted to the verge of the county for their pains; and a third, improving on all former modes of proceeding, has adopted a newer and certainly most impartial manner of deciding a legal question. “Court of Common Pleas, London, July 6. – The Chief Justice (Tindal) asked the ground of objection, and ten of the jurymen answered that in the last case one of their colleagues had suggested that the verdict should be decided by tossing up!” Here is certainly a very important suggestion, and one which, recognising justice as a blind goddess, is strictly in conformity with the impersonation. Nothing could possibly be farther removed from the dangers of undue influence than decisions obtained in this manner. Not only are all the prejudices and party bearings of individual jurors avoided, but an honest and manly oblivion of all the evidence which might bias men if left to the guidance of their poor and erring faculties, is thus secured. It is human to err, says the poet moralist; and so the jurymen in question discovered, and would therefore rather refer a knotty question to another deity than Justice, whom men call Fortune. How much would it simplify our complex and gnarled code, the introduction of this system? In the next place, juries need not be any longer empannelled, the judge could “sky the copper” himself. The only question would be, to have a fair halfpenny. See with what rapidity the much-cavilled court would dispatch public business! I think I see our handsome Chief of the Common Pleas at home here, with his knowing eye watching the vibrations of the coin, and calling out in his sonorous tone, “Head – the plaintiff has it. Call another case.” I peep into the Court of Chancery, and behold Sir Edward twirling the penny with more cautious fingers, and then with his sharp look and sharper voice, say, “Tail! Take a rule for the defendant.”

No longer shall we hear objections as to the sufficiency of legal knowledge possessed by those in the judgment-seat. There will be no petty likings for this, and dislikings for that court; no changes of venue; no challenges of the jury; even Lord Brougham himself, of whom Sir Edward remarked, “What a pity it was he did not know a little law, for then he would have known a little of everything” – even he might be a chancellor once more. What a power of patronage it would give each succeeding ministry to know that capacity was of no consequence; and that the barrister of six years’ standing could turn his penny as well as the leader in Chancery. Public business need never be delayed a moment; and if the Chief Baron were occupied in chamber, the crier of the court could perform his functions till he came back again.

A NUT FOR “CLIMBING BOYS.”

ne man may lead a horse to the water, but ten cannot make him drink, sayeth the adage; and so it might be said, any one might devise an act of parliament – but who can explain all its intentions and provisions – define its powers – and illustrate its meanings? One clause will occasionally vitiate another; one section completely contradict the preceding one; the very objects of the legislature are often so pared away in committee, that a mere shadowy outline remains of what the original framer intended; and were it not for the bold hand of executive justice, the whole might be inoperative. The judge, happily, supplies the deficiency of the lawmaker – and the thing were perfect, if judges were not, like doctors, given to differ – and thus, occasionally, disseminate somewhat opposite notions of the statutes of the land.

Such being the case, it will not be deemed impertinent of one, who desires to conform in all respects to the law, to ask, from time to time, of our rulers and governors, certain questions, the answers to which, should he happily receive them, will be regarded by him as though written on tables of brass.

Now, in a late session of parliament, some humane member brought in a bill to interdict the sweeping of chimneys by all persons small enough for the purpose, and ingeniously suggested supplying their place by others, whose size would have inevitably condemned them to perish in a flue. Never had philanthropist a greater share of popularity. Little sweeps sang his praises along the streets – penny periodicals had verses in his honour – the “song of the soot” was set to music – and people, in the frenzy of their enthusiasm, so far forgot their chimneys, that scarcely a street in town had not, at least, one fire every night in the week. Meanwhile, the tender sweeplings had lost their occupation, they had pronounced their farewell to the brush – what was to become of them? Alas, the legislature had not thought of that point; for, they were not influential enough to claim compensation. I grieve to think, but there is too much reason to fear, that many of them betook themselves to the ancient vocation of pickpockets. Yes, as Dr. Watts has it —

“Satan finds some mischief still

For idle hands to do.”

The divisional police-offices were filled each morning with small “suttees” – whose researches after handkerchiefs and snuff-boxes were of the most active kind; while their full-grown brethren, first impacted in a funnel of ten inches by eight, were cursing the Commons, and consigning to all manner of misfortune the benevolent framer of the bill.

Now, I cannot help asking myself, was this the intention of the legislature – did they really mean that big people should try to penetrate where little ones were not small enough to pass? – or was it some piece of conciliation to the climbing boys, that they should see their masters grilled and wasted, in revenge for “the disabilities they had so long laboured under?” This point of great difficulty – and after much thought and deliberation, I have come to one solution of the whole question, and I only hope it may prove the right one. It is this. The bill is a parable – the climbing boy, and the full-grown sweep – and the chimney, and the householder, and the machine, are mere types which I would interpret thus: – the householder is John Bull, a good-natured, easy fellow, liking his ease, and studying his comfort – caring for his dinner, and detesting smoke above all things; he wishes to have his house neat and orderly, neither confusion nor disturbance – but his great dread is fire; the very thought of it sets him a-trembling all over. Now, for years past, he has remarked that the small sweeps, who mount so glibly to the top of the flue, rarely do anything but make a noise – they scream and shout for ten minutes, or so, and then come down, with their eyes red, and their noses bloody, and cry themselves sick, till they get bread-and-butter. John is worried and fretted at all this; he remembers the time a good-sized sweep used to go up and rake down all the soot in no time. These were the old Tory ministers, who took such wise and safe precautions against fire, that an insurance-office was never needed. “Not so now,” quoth John; “’od! rabbit it, they’ve got their climbing boys, who are always bleating and bawling, for the neighbourhood to look at them – and yet, devil a bit of good they do the whole time.”

And now, who are these? you would ask. I’ll tell you – the “Climbing Boys” are the Howicks, and the Clements – the Smith O’Briens and the D’Israelis, and a host of others, scraping their way upwards, through soot and smoke, that they may put out their heads in high places, and cry “’weep! ’weep!” and well may they – they’ve had a dirty journey – and black enough their hands are, I warrant you, before they got there.

To get rid of these, without offending them, John brings in his philanthropic bill, making it penal to employ them, or to have any other than the old legitimate sweeps, that know every turn of the flue, and have gone up and down any time these twenty years. No new machine for him – no Whig contrivance, to scrape the bricks and burn the house – but the responsible full-grown sweeps – who, if the passage be narrow, have strength to force their way, and take good care not to get dust in their eyes in the process.

Such is my interpretation of the bill, and I only trust a discerning public may agree with me.

A NUT FOR “THE SUBDIVISION OF LABOUR.”

I forget the place, and the occasion also, but I have a kind of misty recollection of having once, in these nutting excursions of mine, been excessively eloquent on the subject of the advantages derivable from division of labour.

Not a walk or condition in life is there to which it has not penetrated; and while natural talents have become cultivated from finding their most congenial sphere of operation, immense results have accrued in every art and science where a higher degree of perfection has been thus attained. Your doctor and your lawyer now-a-days select the precise portion of your person or property they intend to operate on. The oculist and the aurist, and the odontalgist and the pedicurist, all are suggestive of various local sufferings, by which they bound their skill; and so, the equity lawyer and the common-law lawyer, the special pleader and the bar orator, have subdivided knavery, without diminishing its amount. Even in literature, there are the heavy men who “do” the politics, and the quiet men who do the statistics, and the rough-and-ready men, who are a kind of servants-of-all-work, and so on. In universities, there is the science man and the classical man, the man of simple equations and the man of spondees. Painting has its bright colourists and its more sombre-loving artists, and so on – the great camps of party would seem to have given the impulse to every condition of life, and “speciality” is the order of the day.

No sooner is a new discovery made, no matter whether in the skies above, or the dark bowels of the earth, than an opportunity of disagreement is sure to arise. Two, mayhap three, gentlemen, profess diversity of opinion; followers are never lacking, let any one be fool enough to turn leader – and straightway there comes out a new sect, with a Greek name for a title.

It is only the other day, men began to find out that primitive rocks, and basalt, ochre, and sandstone, had lived a long time, and must surely know something of antiquity – if they only could tell it. The stones, from that hour, had an unhappy time of it – men went about in gangs with hammers and crowbars, shivering this and shattering that – picking holes in respectable old rocks, that never had a word said against them, and peeping into “quarts,”¹ like a policeman.

Men must be quarrelsome, you’d say, if they could fight about paving-stones – but so they did. One set would have it that the world was all cinders, and another set insisted it was only slack – and so, they called themselves Plutonians and Neptunians, and made great converts to their respective opinions.

Gulliver tells us of “Big-endians” and “Little-endians,” who hated each other like poison; and thus it is, our social condition is like a row in an Irish fair, where one strikes somebody, and nobody thinks the other right.

Oh! for the happy days of heretofore, when the two kings of Brentford smelled at one nosegay. It couldn’t happen now, I promise you.

One of their majesties would have insisted on the petals, and the other been equally imperative regarding the stamina: they’d have pushed their claims with all the weight of their influence, and there would have been soon little vestige of a nosegay between them.

But to come back, for all this is digression. The subdivision of labour, with all its advantages, has its reverse to the medal. You are ill, for instance. You have been dining with the Lord Mayor, and hip-hipping to the health of her Majesty’s ministers; or drinking, mayhap, nine times nine to the independence of Poland, or civil and religious liberty all over the globe – or any other fiction of large dinners. You go home, with your head aching from bad wine, bad speeches, and bad music; your wife sees you look excessively flushed; your eyes have got an odd kind of expression, far too much of the white being visible; a half shut-up look, like a pastry-cook’s shop on Sunday; there are evident signs, from blackness of the lips, that in your English ardour for the navy you have made a “port-hole” of your mouth; in fact, you have a species of semi-apoplectic threatening, that bodes ill for the insurance company.

A doctor is sent for – he lives near, and comes at once – with a glance he recognises your state, and suggests the immediate remedy – the lancet.

“Fetch a basin,” says somebody, with more presence of mind than the rest.

“Not so fast,” quoth the medico. “I am a pure physician – I don’t bleed: that’s the surgeon’s affair. I should be delighted to save the gentleman’s life – but we have a bye-law against it in the college. Nothing could give me more pleasure than to cure you, if it wasn’t for the charter. What a pity it is! I’m sure I wish, with all my heart, the cook would take courage to open a vein, or even give you a bloody nose with the cleaver.”

Do you think I exaggerate here? Try the experiment – I only ask that.

Sending for the surgeon does not solve the difficulty; he may be a man who cuts corns and cataracts – who only operates for strabismus, or makes new noses for Peninsular heroes. In fact, if you don’t hit the right number – and it’s a large lottery – you may go out of the world without even the benefit of physic.

This great system, however, does not end with human life. The coroners – resolved not to be behind their age – have made a great movement, and shown themselves men worthy of the enlightened era they live in. Read this: —

“On Friday morning last, a man named Patrick Knowlan, a private in the 3rd Buffs, was discovered lying dead close beneath the platform of a wharf at the bottom of Holborn-lane, Chatham. It would appear that deceased had mistaken his way, and fallen from the wharf, which is used for landing coals from the river, a depth of about eight feet, upon the muddy beach below, which was then strewn with refuse coal. There was a large and severe wound upon the left temple, and a piece of coal was sticking in the left cheek, close below the eye. The whole left side of the face was much contracted. He had evidently, from the state of his clothes, been covered with water, which overflows this spot at the period of spring tides. Although nothing certain is known, it is generally supposed that he mistook Holborn-lane for the West-lane, which leads to the barracks, and that walking forward in the darkness he fell from the wharf. Mr. Lewis, the coroner for the city of Rochester, claims jurisdiction over all bodies found in the water at this spot; and as the unfortunate man had evidently been immersed, he thought this a proper case for the exercise of his office, and accordingly summoned a jury to sit upon the body at ten o’clock on Friday morning – but on his going to view the deceased, he found that it was at the King’s Arms, Chatham, in the hands of Bines, the Chatham constable, as the representative of Mr. Hinde, one of the coroners for the eastern division of the county of Kent, who refused to give up the key of the room, but allowed Mr. Lewis and his jury to view the body. They then returned to the Nag’s Head, Rochester, and having heard the evidence of John Shepherd, a fisherman, who deposed that a carter, going on to the beach for coals, at half-past seven o’clock on Friday morning, found the body as already described, the jury returned a verdict of ‘Found dead.’ Mr. Hinde, the county coroner, held another inquest upon the deceased, at the King’s Arms; and after taking the evidence of William Whittingham, the carter who found the body, and Frederick Collins, a corporal of the 3rd Buffs, who stated that he saw the deceased on the evening preceding his death, and he was then sober, the jury returned a verdict of ‘Accidental death;’ each of the coroners issued a warrant for the interment of the body. The disputed jurisdiction, it is believed, will now be submitted to the decision of a higher court, in order to settle what is here considered a vexata quæstio.” —Maidstone Journal.

Is not this perfect? Only think of land coroners and water coroners – imagine the law defining the jurisdiction of the Tellurian as far forth into the sea as he could sit on a corpse without danger, and the Neptunian ruling the waves beyond in absolute sway – conceive the “solidist” revelling in all the accidents that befall life upon the world’s highways, and the “fluidist” seeking his prey like a pearl diver, five fathoms low, beneath “the deep, deep sea.” What a rivalry theirs, who divide the elements between them, and have nature’s everlasting boundaries to define the limits of their empire.

I hope to see the time when these great functionaries of law shall be provided with a suitable costume. I should glory to think of Mr. Hinde accoutred in emblems suggestive of earth and its habits – a wreath of oak leaves round his brows; and to behold Mr. Lewis in a garment of marine plants and sea shells sit upon his corpse, with a trident in his right hand. What a comfort for the man about to take French leave of life, that he could know precisely the individual he should benefit, and be able to go “by land” or “water,” as his taste inclined him.

I have no time here to dwell upon the admirable distinctions of the two verdicts given in the case I allude to. When the great change I suggest is fully carried out, the difficulty of a verdict will at once be avoided, for the jury, like boys at play, will only have to cry out at each case – “wet or dry.”

There would be probably too much expense incurred in poor localities by maintaining two officials; and I should suggest, in such cases, an amphibious coroner – a kind of merman, who should enjoy a double jurisdiction, and, as they say of half-bred pointers, be able “to take the water when required.”

A NUT FOR A “NEW VERDICT.”

Money-getting and cotton-spinning have left us little time for fun of any kind in England – no one has a moment to spare, let him be ever so droll, and a joke seems now to be esteemed a bonâ fide expenditure; and as “a pin a day” is said to be “a groat a year,” there is no calculating what an inroad any manner of pleasantry might not make into a man’s income. Book-writers have ceased to be laughter-moving – the stage has given it up altogether, except now and then in a new tragedy – society prefers gravity to gaiety – and, in fact, the spirit of comic fun and drollery would seem to have died out in the land – if it were not for that inimitable institution called trial by jury. Bless their honest hearts! jurymen do indeed relieve the drab-coloured look of every-day life – they come out in strong colour from the sombre tints of common-place events and people. Queer dogs! nothing can damp the warm ardour of their comic vein – all the solemnity of a court of justice – the look of the bar and the bench – the voice of the crier – the blue bags of briefs – the “terrible show,” has no effect on their minds – “ruat cœlum,” they will have their joke.

It is in vain for the judge, let him be ever so rigid in his charge, to tell them that their province is simply with certain facts, on which they have to pronounce an opinion of yea or nay. They must be jurymen, and “something more.” It’s not every day Mr. Sniggins, of Pimlico, is called upon to keep company with a chief-justice and sergeant learned in the law – Popkins don’t leave his shop once a week to discuss Coke upon Littleton with an attorney-general. No: the event to them is a great one – there they sit, fawned on, and flattered by counsel on both sides – called impartial and intelligent, and all that – and while every impertinence the law encourages has been bandied about the body of the court, they remain to be lauded and praised by all parties, for they have a verdict in their power, and when it comes – what a thing it is!

There is a well-known story of an English nobleman, desiring to remain incog. in Calais, telling his negro servant – “If any one ask who I am, Sambo, mind you say, ‘a Frenchman.’” Sambo carried out the instruction by saying – “My massa a Frenchman, and so am I.” This anecdote exactly exemplifies a verdict of a jury – it cannot stop short at sense, but must, by one fatal plunge, involve its decision in absurdity.

Hear what lately happened in the north of Ireland. A man was tried and found guilty of murder – the case admitted no doubt – the act was a cold-blooded, deliberate assassination, committed by a soldier on his sergeant, in the presence of many witnesses. The trial proceeded; the facts were proved; and – I quote the local newspaper —

“The jury retired, and were shut up when the judge left the court, at half-past seven. At nine, his lordship returned to court, when the foreman of the jury intimated that they had agreed. They were then called into court, and having answered to their names, returned a verdict of guilty, but recommended the prisoner to mercy upon account of the close intimacy that existed between the parties at the time of the occurrence.”

Now, what ever equalled this? When the jury who tried Madame Laffarge for the murder of her husband, returned a verdict of guilty, with that recommendation to mercy which is implied by the words “des circonstances attenuantes,” Alphonse Karr pronounced the “extenuating circumstances,” to be the fact, that she always mixed gum with the arsenic, and never gave him his poison “neat.”

But even they never thought of carrying out their humanity farther by employing the Belfast plea, that she had been “intimate with him” before she killed him. No, it was reserved for our canny northerns to find out this new secret of criminal jurisprudence, and to show the world that there is a deep philosophy in the vulgar expression, a blood relation – meaning thereby that degree of allianceship which admits of butchery, and makes killing no murder; for if intimacy be a ground of mercy, what must be friendship, what brotherhood, or paternity?

Were this plea to become general, how cautious would men become about their acquaintances – what a dread they would entertain of becoming intimate with gentlemen from Tipperary!

I scarcely think the Whigs would throw out such lures for Dan and his followers, if they could consider these consequences; and I doubt much – taking everything into consideration, that the “Duke” would see so much of Lord Brougham as he has latterly.

“Whom can a man make free with, if not with his friends?” saith Figaro; and the Belfast men have studied Beaumarchais, and only “carried out his principle,” as the Whigs say, when they speak of establishing popery in Ireland, to complete the intention of emancipation.

Lawyers must have been prodigiously sick of all the usual arguments in defence of prisoners in criminal cases many a year ago. One of the cleverest lawyers and the cleverest men I ever knew, says he would hang any man who was defended on an alibi, and backed by a good character. Insanity is worn out; but here comes Belfast to the rescue, with its plea of intimacy. Show that your client was no common acquaintance – prove clearly habits of meeting and dining together – display a degree of friendship between the parties that bordered on brotherhood, and all is safe. Let your witness satisfy the jury that they never had an altercation or angry word in their lives, and depend upon it, killing will seem merely a little freak of eccentricity, that may be indulged with Norfolk Island, but not punished with the gallows.

“Guilty, my lord, but very intimate with the deceased,” is a new discovery in law, and will hereafter be known as “the Belfast verdict.”