This morning I was setting off for Dundee when Willie Marshall entered
the compartment. He was dressed in his Sunday best, and I wondered why
he was going to Dundee on a Wednesday.
"Hullo, Willie!" I cried, "what's on to-day?"
He looked troubled and angry.
"I've been summoned to serve on the jury that's tryin' that dawmed rat
that stailt ten pund frae the minister," he said viciously, "and I had
little need to lose a day, for I hae far mair work than I can dae.
Mossbank's twa cairts cam in yestreen, and he's swearin' like onything
that he maun hae them by the nicht." Willie is a joiner, and most of
his work is building and repairing carts.
"So you think that Nosie Broon is guilty?" I said with a smile.
"Of coorse he is," he cried with emphasis.
"But," I said seriously, "you'll maybe alter your mind when you hear
the evidence."
He grunted.
"Dawn nae fear! I'll show him that he's no to drag me awa frae ma work
for nothing!"
He opened his _Dundee Courier_, and I sat and thought of the trial by
jury method. I would not condemn it on the strength of Willie's
dangerous misunderstanding of what it means, but I do condemn it on
other grounds. Weighing evidence is a difficult enough business even
for the specialist, for it is almost impossible to eliminate emotion in
forming a judgment. With a jury of citizens, some of them possibly
illiterate, too much depends on the advocates, or on outside causes.
During the war there was a glaring instance of this. A soldier shot
the man who had been trying to steal his wife's love . . . and the
verdict of the jury was Not Guilty. The emotional factor in this case
was that the dead man was a German. I am not arguing that the prisoner
should have been hanged or imprisoned, for I think both procedures are
bad; I merely point out that in the eyes of legalism the soldier was
guilty, yet the jury threw legalism overboard.
Another instance of the emotional factor over-ruling legalism is seen
in the trial of the man who shot Jaures. He was acquitted. . . . Not
Guilty . . . the man who slew one of the best men in Europe. On the
other hand the youth who attempted to assassinate Clemenceau was
sentenced to death, pardoned, and sent to penal servitude. In France
therefore it is a crime to kill a politician of the right, but a virtue
to kill one of the Socialist left.
Abstract justice is a figment. No jury and no judge can be impartial.
The other day a man was charged with striking a Socialist orator with
an ice-pick. The judge lectured the orator on his Bolshevism, and then
gave the accused imprisonment for a short term in the second division.
Suppose that the Bolshevist had used an ice-pick on a Cabinet Minister!
I do not think that our judges and magistrates ever consciously show
partiality. They are an upright class of men, men above suspicion. It
is their unconscious that shows partiality just as mine does. The army
colonels who tried Conscientious Objectors were upright men, but it was
wrong to imagine that they could possibly see the C.O.'s point of view.
So it was with the regular R.A.M.C. doctors. To some of them the
neurotic patient was a swinger of the lead, a malingerer. They had
never heard of the new psychiatry, and the neurotic was a strange
creature to them. Their ignorance supplemented their prejudice, and
they could not possibly have treated these men with justice.
The truth is that we all make up our minds according as our buried
complexes impel us. If I saw a Frenchman fighting a Scot I should take
the Scot's side, because I have a Scot complex. Occasionally our
complexes work in the opposite way. I fancy that the few people who
sided with the Germans in the war were suffering from an "agin the
government" complex, which, if you trace it deep enough is usually
found to be an infantile rebellion against the father. In this case
the State represented the father, and Germany was the outside helper
who should conquer the father (or mother) country. Had Germany won,
the unpatriotic man would immediately have turned his hate against
Prussia, for then Prussia would have been the father substitute.
Our loves and hates and fears are within ourselves. I know a man who
has a nagging wife; she has a constant wish for new things. He bought
her a hat, and for two days she was happy; then she nagged, and he
bought her a dress. Three days later she demanded a necklace, and he
gave her a necklace. He may continue giving her everything she asks
for, but if he buys her a Rolls Royce and a house in Park Lane she will
be a dissatisfied woman, for "the fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our
stars but in ourselves." I advised him to spend his money on having
her psycho-analysed.
* * * * *
To-night Tammas Lownie the joiner came into Dauvit's shop. He is an
infrequent attender at Dauvit's parliament, and Dauvit seemed slightly
surprised at his entry.
"Weel, Tammas," he said, "it's no often that we see you here. What's
brocht ye here the nicht?"
Tammas spat in the grate.
"Oh, it was a fine nicht, and I thought I'd just tak a daunder yont,"
he said easily.
Dauvit looked at him searchingly.
"Na, na, Tammas, it winna dae! It wasna the fine nicht that brocht ye
yont. Ye've got some news I'm thinkin'."
Tammas laughed loudly.
"Dauvit, ye're oncanny!" he cried. "Ye seem to read what's at the back
o' a man's held. But I have nae news to gie ye."
Dauvit chuckled.
"I wudna wonder if ye didna come yont to tell me aboot the eldership,"
he said slowly.
The expression on Tammas's face showed that he _had_ come to tell us
that the minister had asked him to become an elder.
"'Od, Dauvit, noo that ye come to mention it I wud like to hear yer
advice aboot the matter. I dinna see how I can tak an eldership,
Dauvit."
"How no?" asked Dauvit in surprise.
Then he added: "But maybe ye ken whether ye've got a sinfu' heart or
no."
"It's no that," said Tammas hastily, "I'm nae worse than some other
elders I ken," and he glanced at Jake Tosh. "No, it's no the sin I'm
thinkin' o'; it's my trade."
"But," I put in, "why shouldn't a joiner be an elder?"
Tammas bit off a chunk of Bogie Roll.
"That may as may be, dominie, but I'm mair than a joiner; I'm an
undertakker."
"Weel," said Dauvit, "what aboot that?"
Tammas shook his head sadly.
"An undertakker canna be an elder, Dauvit. Suppose the minister was
awa preachin' or at the Assembly, and ane o' his congregation was
deein', me as an elder micht hae to ging to the bedside and offer up a
bit prayer."
"There's nothing in that," said Jake proudly; "I've offered up a bit
prayer afore noo when the minister was awa."
"Aye, Jake," said Tammas, "but ye see you're a roadman. But an
undertakker is a different matter. Goad, lads, I canna gie a man a bit
prayer at sax o'clock and syne measure him for his coffin at acht.
That wud look like mixin' religion wi' business."
The assembly thought over this aspect.
"All the same," said the smith, "Dr. Hall is an elder, and naebody ever
thinks o' accusin' him o' mixin' religion wi' his business."
We all considered this statement.
"Tammas," said Dauvit, "if ye want to be an elder tak it, and never
mind the undertakkin'. But if ever ye have to gie a prayer just get
Jake here to tak on the job."
He began to laugh here.
"I mind o' Jeemie Ritchie when he got his eldership. The minister gaed
awa to the Assembly in Edinbro, and as it happened auld Jess Tosh was
deein', so Jeemie was asked to come up and gie her a prayer. Jeemie
was in my shop when the lassie Tosh cam for him, and I never saw a man
in sic a state.
"'Dauvit,' he cries, 'I canna dae it! I never offered up a prayer in
my life!'
"'Hoots, Jeemie,' says I, 'it's easy; just bring in a few bitties frae
the Bible.'
"Auld Jeemie he scarted his heid.
"'Man, Dauvit,' says he, 'I cudna say twa words o' the Bible.'
"Weel-a-weel, I had to shove him oot o' the shop, and I tell ye, boys,
he was shakin' like a shakky-trummly.
"Weel, in aboot half-an-hour Jeemie cam back, and he was smilin' like
onything.
"'Hoo did ye get on?' I speered.
"'Graund!' he cried, '. . . she was deid afore I got there!'"
* * * * *
When I published my _Log_ a correspondent wrote accusing me of being
disloyal to my colleagues in the teaching profession.
"Where is your professional etiquette?" he wrote.
I had lots of letters from teachers, some flattering, some not. One
man wrote me from Croydon:--
"Dear Sir,--Are you a fool or merely a silly ass?"
"Both," I replied, "else I should not have paid 2d. for your letter."
In haste the poor man hastened to forward two penny stamps, and to
apologise for not having stamped the letter he sent me.
"I really thought that I had stamped it," he wrote.
Then I wrote him a nice letter telling him that the mistake was mine,
for his first letter had had a stamp on it after all. He never replied
to that, and I suppose that now he goes about telling his friends that
I am a fool, a silly ass, and a typical Scot.
Authors hear queer things about themselves. The other day a friend of
mine asked for my _Log_ in a West End library. As the librarian handed
over the book she shook her head sadly.
"Isn't it sad about the man who wrote that book?" she said.
My friend was startled.
"Sad! What do you mean?"
"Oh, haven't you heard?" asked the librarian in surprise; "he's a
confirmed drunkard now."
"Impossible!" cried my friend, "with whisky at ten and six a bottle!"
But I meant to write about colleagues. One day a class was holding a
self-government meeting, and they sent for me. I was annoyed because I
was having my after-dinner smoke in the staff-room. However I went up.
"Hullo!" I said as I entered, "what do you want?"