Watson is a young barrister who is feeling rather pleased with himself.
I confess that he has deserved it.
The situation was as follows. Before the War he had had no briefs, but
had always had a conscience. A hopeless state of affairs. Then he went
to the War and shed his conscience somewhere in the Balkans. So far so
good. But, when he was demobilised and began to take stock of what had
been happening at home in the meanwhile, he found to his horror that a
conscience had again been thrust upon him by the General Council of the
Bar.
Such was the situation he had to face, and he has won through.
How, you ask, did the G.C.B. play this trick on him? It happened in
this way. Having nothing better to do during Watson's absence and at a
critical moment of the War, these idle elderly well-fed lawyers solemnly
deliberated upon the following fantastic problem:--
"What is the duty of counsel who is defending a prisoner on a plea of
Not Guilty when the prisoner confesses to counsel that he did commit the
offence charged?"
With a cynical disregard of their own past these sophists propounded the
following answer:--
"If the confession has been made before the proceedings have been
commenced it is most undesirable that an advocate to whom the confession
has been made should undertake the defence, as he would most certainly
be seriously embarrassed in the conduct of the case, and no harm can be
done to the accused by requesting him to retain another advocate."
The new Watson was unable to agree with this doctrine, so far as it
* * * * *
The legal conscience thus gratuitously thrust upon him was soon to
undergo its first ordeal. An acquaintance of his, in a moment of
absent-mindedness, murdered somebody, and asked Watson to persuade the
inevitable jury that he hadn't. The said acquaintance explained to
Watson that he simply did it when he wasn't thinking.
Watson was in a hole. Obviously this was a case to which the
embarrassment prescribed by the General Council of the Bar was
applicable. This legal embarrassment, which, strictly speaking, ought
now to be his, would not, however, have worried him in the least had
it not been for another consideration. Suppose, after Watson had
triumphantly got his client acquitted, it got about that the "innocent"
had confessed his crime to counsel beforehand? That would mean an end to
Watson's professional career. One does not thus slight the edicts of the
mighty with impunity.
Watson was too proud to ask his client to keep the deadly secret, or to
apply the famous wriggle of _Hippolytus_: "My tongue hath sworn, but my
heart remains unsworn."
Nevertheless Watson gave his mind to the problem. In the end he decided
on the following line of defence: "Not Guilty," and in the alternative
"Guilty under justifiable circumstances, without malice aforethought but
with intent to benefit the person murdered."
Happily the General Council of the Bar has not yet assigned any
moral embarrassment to a counsel who pleads "Not Guilty," and in the
alternative, "Guilty." Watson therefore reasoned that if the jury
returned a verdict of "Not Guilty," his client's alternative confession
could be written off as an obvious mistake; on the other hand, if he
were found "Guilty," the fact of confession would be an ethical asset
towards securing for him a lenient view of the case.
As I said, Watson behaved well. He proved to his own and the jury's
satisfaction (1) that his client did not commit the murder; (2) that
alternatively he did commit the murder, but that he did so for the good
of everybody concerned; and (3) that in either case he never meant to do
it.
In the event the prisoner was acquitted without a stain upon his
* * * * *
Watson is now well established as the last hope of abandoned causes. He
is a specialist in defence, and criminals of every shade throng to him.
When a new one swims into his ken Watson meets him on the threshold
and says, "Don't speak a word. Read this;" and he puts into his hand a
printed slip. The slip reads:--
"_ Conditions of Advocacy_.
"(1) If you put your case into my hands it ceases at once and from
that moment to be any concern of your own. You are not entitled, for
instance, to express any opinion as to whether you committed the
alleged crime or not. That is my affair exclusively.
"(2) If however there is anything which lies so heavily on your
conscience that it must out sooner or later, let it be later. I
am open to receive confessions at any time after proceedings have
begun.
"If you accept these conditions, good; if not, go."
Watson says they always accept them, so he never worries about the
General Council of the Bar.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE NEW ISSUE.
OIL GENIE _(gushingly, to Coal-Owner and Mr. SMILLIE)._ "CAN I DO
ANYTHING TO ALLAY THE TROUBLED WATERS?"
[The discovery of oil in Derbyshire, which threatens the supremacy of
the mining industry, may affect the questions now in dispute before the
Coal Commission.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Harassed Mother (having distributed half of her
offspring on laps of passengers)._ "COME ON, 'ENERY. SQUEEZE IN
SOMEWHERE. 'TAIN'T EXAC'LY 'OW I LOIKES TO TRAVEL, BUT S'POSE WE'LL 'AVE
TO PUT UP WITH IT."]
* * * * *