“THE BEAR GARDEN”
The authors of the guide-books have signally failed to discover the
really interesting parts of Law-land. I have looked through several
of these books and not one of them refers, for example, to the
“Bear-Garden,” which is the place where the preliminary skirmishes of
litigation are carried out. The Bear-Garden is the name given to it by
the legal profession, so I am quite in order in using the title. In
fact, if you want to get to it, you have to use that title. The proper
title would be something like The Place where Masters in Chambers
function at Half-past One: but if you go into the Law Courts and ask
one of the attendants where that is, he will say, rather pityingly, “Do
you mean the _Bear-Garden_?” And you will know at once that you have
lost caste. Caste is a thing you should be very careful of in these
days; so the best thing is to ask for the Bear-Garden straightaway.
It is in the purlieus of the Law Courts, and very hard to find. It is
up a lot of very dingy back staircases and down a lot of very dingy
passages. The Law Courts are like all our public buildings. The parts
where the public is allowed to go are fairly respectable, if not
beautiful, but the purlieus and the basements and the upper floors are
scenes of unimaginable dinginess and decay. The Law Courts’ purlieus
are worse than the Houses of Parliament purlieus; and it seems to me
that even more disgraceful things are done in them. It only shows you
the dangers of Nationalization.
On the way to the Bear-Garden you pass the King’s Remembrancer’s rooms;
this is the man who reminds His Majesty about people’s birthdays; and
in a large family like that he must be kept busy. Not far from the
King’s Remembrancer there is a Commissioner for Oaths; you can go into
this room and have a really good swear for about half a crown. This is
cheaper than having it in the street--that is, if you are a gentleman;
for by the Profane Oaths Act, 1745, swearing and cursing is punishable
by a fine of 1s. for every day-labourer, soldier or seaman; 2s. for
every other person under the degree of gentleman; and 5s. for every
person far above the degree of gentleman. This is not generally known.
The Commissioner for Oaths is a very broad-minded man, and there is
literally no limit to what you may swear before him. The only thing is
that he insists on your filing it before you actually say it. This may
cause delay, so that if you are feeling particularly strongly about
anything, it is probably better to have it out in the street and risk
being taken for a gentleman.
There are a number of other interesting functionaries on the way to
the Bear-Garden; but we must get on. When you have wandered about in
the purlieus for a long time you will hear a tremendous noise, a sort
of combined snarling and roaring and legal conversation. When you hear
that you will know that you are very near the bears. They are all
snarling and roaring in a large preliminary arena, where the bears
prepare themselves for the struggle; all round it are smaller cages or
arenæ, where the struggle takes place. If possible, you ought to go
early so that you can watch the animals massing. Lawyers, as I have
had occasion to observe before, are the most long-suffering profession
in the country, and the things they do in the Bear-Garden they have to
do in the luncheon-hour, or rather in the luncheon half-hour, 1.30 to
2. This accounts, perhaps, for the extreme frenzy of the proceedings.
They hurry in in a frenzy up the back stairs about 1.25, and they
pace up and down in a frenzy till the time comes. There are all sorts
of bears, most of them rather seedy old bears, with shaggy and unkempt
coats. These are solicitors’ clerks, and they all come straight out
of Dickens. They have shiny little private-school handbags, each
inherited, no doubt, through a long line of ancestral solicitors’
clerks; and they all have the draggled sort of moustache that tells you
when it is going to rain. While they are pacing up and down the arena
they all try to get rid of these moustaches by pulling violently at
alternate ends; but the only result is to make it look more like rain
than ever. Some of the bears are robust old bears, with well-kept coats
and loud roars; these are solicitors’ clerks too, only better-fed; or
else they are real solicitors. And a few of the bears are perky young
creatures--in barrister’s robes--either for the first time--when they
look very self-conscious--or for the second time--when they look very
self-confident. All the bears are telling each other about their cases.
They are saying, “We are a deceased wife’s sister suing _in forma
pauperis_,” or, I am a discharged bankrupt, three times convicted of
perjury, but I am claiming damages under the Diseases of Pigs Act,
1862,” or “You are the crew of a merchant ship and we are the editor
of a newspaper----” Just at first it is rather disturbing to hear
snatches of conversation like that, but there is no real cause for
alarm; they are only identifying themselves with the interests of their
clients, and when one realizes that one is a little touched.
At last one of the keepers at the entrance to the small cages begins
to shout very loudly. It is not at all clear what he is shouting, but
apparently it is the pet-names of the bears, for there is a wild rush
for the various cages. Attaching himself to this rush the observer is
swept with a struggling mass of bears past the keeper into a cage.
Across the middle of the cage a stout barricade has been erected,
and behind the barricade sits the Master, pale but defiant. Masters
in Chambers are barristers who have not the proper legal faces and
have had to give up being ordinary barristers on that account; in
the obscurity and excitement of the Bear-Garden nobody notices that
their faces are all wrong. The two chief bears rush at the Master
and the other bears jostle round them, egging them on. When they see
that they cannot get at the Master they begin snarling. One of them
snarls quietly out of a long document about the Statement of Claim.
He throws a copy of this at the Master, and the Master tries to get
the hang of it while the bear is snarling; but the other bear is by
now beside himself With rage and he begins putting in what are called
interlocutory snarls, so that the Master gets terribly confused,
though he doesn’t let on. By and by all pretence of formality and
order is put aside, and the battle really begins. At this stage of the
proceedings the rule is that not less than two of the protagonists
must be roaring at the same time, of which one must be the Master. But
the more general practice is for all three of them to roar at the same
time. Sometimes, it is true, by sheer roar-power, the Master succeeds
in silencing one of the bears for a moment, but he can never be said
to succeed in cowing a bear. If anybody is cowed it is the Master.
Meanwhile, the lesser bears press closer and closer, pulling at the
damp ends of their rainy moustaches and making whispered suggestions
for new devilries in the ears of the chief bears, who nod their heads
emphatically, but don’t pay any attention. The final stage is the stage
of physical violence, when the chief bears lean over the barricade and
shake their paws at the Master; they think they are only making legal
gestures, but the Master knows very well that they are getting out of
hand; he knows then that it is time he threw them a bun. So he says a
soothing word to each of them and runs his pen savagely through almost
everything on their papers. The bears growl in stupefaction and rage,
and take deep breaths to begin again. But meanwhile the keeper has
shouted for a fresh set of bears, who surge wildly into the room. The
old bears are swept aside and creep out, grunting. What the result of
it all is I don’t know. Nobody knows. The new bears begin snarling....