FIRST BRIEFS
At last the golden orientall gate
Of greatest heaven gan to open fayre.
SPENSER: “Faerie Queen.”
I suppose in early days the “stranger” must have been a sadly
persecuted individual, else why should there be so many texts
persuasively commending him to the care of the righteous. Even now
there are some communities and clubs where to be a “stranger” is to be
set apart and treated like a leper. Those out-houses in which guests
are housed in some of the pre-historic London clubs are examples of
what I mean. In earlier cannibal times no doubt the “stranger” was
merely a welcome addition to the larder, but even then there seem to
have been ceremonies and rites in the fattening and final presentation
of the guest which students of folk-lore would regard as the early
manifestations of hospitality. However that may be, there is no doubt
that in the treatment of the stranger within the gates the north
country is farther removed from barbarism than the south. In London,
for instance, every man is a stranger. I have met fellow-countrymen
from the Colonies who found the welcome secured by introductions to
London to be an entirely formal and cold-blooded affair compared with
that extended to them by a similar class in the north. Not only in
London, but taking its anti-social note from London, the surrounding
south is chilly and aloof towards its fellow-man, especially if the
fellow-man talks broadly with an open accent, and has not attained
that weary, blurred, mincing tongue which serves the southerner in
lieu of speech. It is not so much that in these sunny latitudes we
have forgotten our duty to our neighbour, but rather that we have
never had any neighbours, that we have made it a religion not to have
neighbours, and continue to live for years and years in our
semi-detached surburban villas without exchanging a word with the man
next door, whose ties and trousers do daily offence to such creeds as
we still possess. Whereas the gospel seems to have taught the
uncultivated men and women who live on those wild stretches of railway
beyond Rugby and Crewe that everyone is a neighbour, and must be
treated according to the text in that case made and provided.
I have already spoken of the kindness of my first friends in
Manchester, from which sprang many other pleasant friendships. No end
of folk seemed to take an interest in our small household. I think
some came to look at us out of curiosity. The impertinence and
absurdity of an unfledged stranger settling down among them in this
way seemed to amuse them. I remember taking in to dinner the wife of
an eminent professor who made it her duty to know the inner household
affairs of all those tenements and hereditaments situated or adjacent
to the Oxford Road, between Nelson Street in the north and the White
Lion in the south.
Turning to me as the cloth was removed, she said in a tone half of
entreaty, half of command, “Tell me, Mr. Parry――I have heard so many
different accounts and I really must know――what did you marry on?”
I had the presence of mind to answer, “Nothing, madam, absolutely
nothing!”
The romance of it touched her tender heart, dear soul, and she was for
ever asking us to dinner under the firm belief that we were starving.
Certainly no strangers ever had a kinder reception than we had in the
north, and it seemed to make the months of waiting for those first
briefs pass very smoothly and pleasantly. And what made life more
joyous than anything I had experienced was the professional
comradeship of those among whom one’s work had to be done. There were
still many circuit wanderers domiciled in London who followed her
Majesty’s judges when they went their rounds, but there were also a
large number of local barristers who dominated the Quarter Sessions
and did the work in the County Courts. All those were, of course,
members of the Northern Circuit, and in the absence of the assizes,
upheld in their daily struggles the spirit of sympathy and
good-fellowship for which the Northern Circuit is justly famous. Even
the Chancery men who made vast fortunes in the Palatine Court joined
the circuit, and became less sterilised and better humanised under the
fragrant influences of Bar mess.
How curious it is that the common law mind always thinks of a Chancery
man with pity mingled with a certain distaste. Pity which is sworn
servant unto love springs from our admiration of the Chancery man as a
human person; the distaste is engendered spontaneously, and arises, I
fancy, out of and in the course of his occupation. He wears to all
appearances a similar gown, his wig is of the same iron grey, he
quotes from somewhat fatter and duller books perhaps, but they are
written in much the same joyless jargon――I never met a jolly, breezy,
merry, law book――and yet there is something in the flavour of him that
you find in professors and schoolmasters, the drier sort of vicars and
policemen. Is this shrinking from the Chancery man some prejudice
atavistically reproduced from the days of “Jarndyce v. Jarndyce,” or a
manifestation of eugenic instinct? It is difficult to say, but I know
that it is not a merely personal prepossession. The old court-keeper
at Strangeways acknowledged to the feeling, and he saw more of the
Chancery men than he did of the common law men, for the Palatine Court
he had always with him. I asked him once to explain to me the reason
of it, but it was beyond his powers of analysis. He had the same
instinct about Chancery men that was inspired in the mind of Tom Brown
by the late Dr. Fell, but the reason why he could not tell. I
discovered this quite accidentally and it became a bond of union
between us. It happened in this way.
A small light and air case had――like some seedling weed――got blown
into the assize list from across the corridor where the Palatine Court
droned along, and with it came Astbury. Yes, Astbury――even Astbury was
once a junior and sat in the back row. I was against him. I think it
was the fault of Stephen, J., who did not understand plans, or the
superior cunning of Astbury, who built up a model of the buildings
with volumes of “Barnewall and Alderson,” and by the kindergarten
methods of Froebel captured the judgment of the Court; or maybe, as I
told my client afterwards, we never had a leg to stand upon, and
Astbury had the right end of the stick――he was often attached to that
end. Be all that as it may, Chancery defeated Common law utterly and
with costs.
I can see our good janitor’s gloomy face as he leaned over the carved
end of the seats and gazed wearily at us. We were the last non-jury of
the assizes, and he was waiting with the charwomen in ambush to do the
washing up. “Eh! Mr. Parry,” he said with a deep sigh, almost a groan,
“and to think of you being beat――and by a Chancery man.” It seemed a
thing hard to bear at the time and likely to be fraught with ruin, but
it was forgotten, and now I recall it more as a story of misfortune
than disgrace. For it is easier to remember the ill turns of fortune’s
wheel than the lucky ones. How meanly we bluster over memories of
ill-luck, and never give a thought to the briefs that leaped the
bunkers and the points of law that holed out from the edge of the
green. The other fellow’s good fortune we remember sneeringly well,
but our own――well, it is a common failing, and certainly I am not more
free from it than another. But I suppose every one who has had any
fortune at all at the Bar could tell some amusing stories of accidents
that have helped him to success. Certainly in my short round――I only
played nine holes, as it were, for within ten years of my call I was a
judge――I cannot grumble at my luck, and some of the early chances
which brought me briefs were as unexpected as they were entertaining.
It must have been within a year of my coming to Manchester that I was
met by a glad surprise when I went down to the Assize Courts to my
usual occupation of sitting in the back row and listening to others do
cases in a manner that made me feel really sorry for them, their
clients and myself. Wandering along the corridor in a weary and
somewhat melancholy way, feeling that I had no real part in this
hustling crowd of excited litigants and lawyers that the first day of
assizes brings together, I was suddenly handed――a brief. If it had
been a writ or a County Court summons or――but it was a brief. And
there I was charged with the responsibility of defending a tradesman
who, with his servant girl, was indicted for conspiracy to conceal the
birth of the latter’s child. The papers were marked “15 and 1. With
you Mr. Addison, Q.C.” I had never heard of the solicitor, and he took
occasion to let me know that he had never heard of me, and had had
some trouble to find anyone who had. However, there was the brief, a
very fine specimen of that _rara avis_, and I promenaded with it under
my arm or left it lying about in prominent places in hopes that it
would act as a decoy. Towards the end of the sittings Addison defended
the prisoner with great success――I had really nothing to do but look
on――and both he and McKeand, who defended the girl, obtained
acquittals. The case created some sensation in the local town where
the prisoners came from, and I heard that the prisoners and their
counsel were burnt in effigy on the evening of the trial.
I never learnt the solution of that mysterious brief until years
afterwards. What had happened was this. I had been defending some
prisoners for McKeand in the second court at Salford Sessions, one
being the case of a man charged with assault on a woman, in which, to
my own and other people’s surprise, there was an acquittal. The
prisoner in the assize case was on the jury in that case, and when his
own turn came, having seen no other counsel defending prisoners than
Parry, he came to the conclusion that Parry was essential to his
liberty. Nothing that his solicitor could do could alter his
determination, so the sensible solicitor obeyed his client’s
instructions and with some difficulty discovered Parry, and then in
order that his client might have a really good run for his money he
gave Addison a leading brief.
One solicitor came to me for elaborate opinions on difficult points of
law, and always marked the brief Dr. Parry. I found out that in a
local list of the Bar, my name being next Pankhurst’s at the bottom of
the page, the printer had repeated the Dr.――really it is quite as good
a way of obtaining a degree as any other――but my practice as a doctor
of law ended after six months when a new and correct list was printed.
I had a visit once from a solicitor from Burnley with his client, a
bookmaker. They had some talk outside with my clerk and then came in.
The bookmaker nodded and said, “That’s him,” and appeared to be very
satisfied. His great anxiety about his case, which was a summons for
keeping a betting house, is best expressed in his own instructions,
which he repeated to me several times. “I ain’t partickler what I
pays, but I want yer ter see that at the end of the case there ain’t
no going down stairs.”
The county magistrates let him off with a fine of £80. He was a
well-known and not unrespected character, and perhaps had met some of
the justices in another place. He seemed to think the magistrates
pocketed the money, for he took it very philosophically, and said as
he crumpled up the receipt for the fine: “After all, it’s quite
natural they should try and get a bit of their own back to-day, but
I’ll have my turn presently.”
I learned afterwards that the bookmaker was an admirer of my style of
advocacy. His solicitor, a broad Lancashire man, told me the story of
it. “He comes to me and says ‘I want that two-year-old I sees at Bury
County Court last week.’ What’s his name? I asked. ‘Hanged if I know,’
says he, ‘but he’s a long, lean, lanky beggar, and he puts one foot on
the desk and just talks to the judge like ’as if he was his feyther.’
With that I came to Manchester, and I was talking to one of Cobbett’s
clerks and I repeats the description, and before the words were out of
my mouth he says ‘Parry!’ So we comes round to your chambers, and sure
enough he was right.”
Had one the pencil of Sir Thomas Overbury, how pleasant it would be to
draw the outline portraits of the worthy characters of my comrades of
the Northern Circuit. Looking back on my short sojourn among them, two
men seem to stand out as types of the genius of the circuit, Gully and
Charley McKeand. Both were ideally honest and full of consideration
for their opponents, and it is in these qualities that I think the
Northern Circuit is pre-eminent.
But though they shared these good attributes they had little else in
common. Charley McKeand was as rough and blustering in his advocacy as
Gully was smooth and polished. Gully wounded his victims with a
rapier, McKeand with a bludgeon. All advocacy ought to be
straightforward, and the bulk of it is. Certainly, the standard of
honesty and open dealing on the Northern Circuit is a very high one.
But Gully and McKeand were the Quixotes of the Bar, and when a junior
like myself had to appear against either of them he realised what a
refreshing thing it is in advocacy to be concerned in a case where,
however powerful is the frontal attack, there are to be no ambushes or
ambuscades.
Charley McKeand had not anything of the appearance of a leader of the
Bar, yet he developed rapidly into a very clever advocate, and would
have done big things but for his untimely death. The first impression
of him was of a big, jolly, careless Englishman, rather stout and
easy-going, fond of sport and sporting companions. But give him a
brief, and his attitude towards life changed. He was never a learned
lawyer, but he knew the law of evidence well, and would get some
junior to “devil” the legal circumstances of any case that had any law
in it, and quickly picked up all that was necessary to his purpose. He
began his advocate’s career in the right way, by defending prisoners
from the dock. If, with a copy of the depositions in front of you and
an oft-convicted thief in the dock behind you, the verdict is “Not
guilty,” you may know that you are qualifying for an advocate. Charley
McKeand did it――not once, but again and again. There was no apparent
art in his style, but he thundered out the most absurd suggestions of
a hopeless defence with an energy and enthusiasm that often inspired a
belief in them in the minds of an inexperienced jury. He soon became
the fashion, and no criminal would be without him if he could possibly
afford his services.
He was one of the most popular figures in Manchester, and the mob, who
always take the side of the unfortunate nobleman in the dock, called
him in their good-natured adoration “The People’s Charley.” When he
defended a cabman at the police court who had got into some trouble
with the authorities over hackney coach bye-laws and defeated the
police, the cabmen of St. Anne’s Square cheered him as he drove his
phæton down to court with his bull-dog by his side, and held a mass
meeting and sent a deputation to his chambers to present him with a
handsome gold-mounted malacca.
It was about this time that he was pressed to stand for municipal
honours. Certainly no Nonconformist conscience could have stood a
chance against “The People’s Charley.” He greatly enjoyed the first
invitation he received. A few of the inner circle of the politicians
of a certain ward came to visit and ask him to stand as a Conservative
candidate at the next municipal election.
“But I heard Mr. X. was going to stand,” said McKeand, naming a very
respectable citizen.
“Nay, Mr. McKeand,” said the spokesman, dwelling lovingly on three
syllables of his name. “Nay, Mr. McKeand, we don’t want Mr. X., we
wants you. Mr. X. ain’t anything to the likes o’ us. You know our
ward, Mr. McKeand. It’s full of bookmakers and thieves and
rat-catchers――you knows the sort and they knows you――and they’ll vote
for you like one man.”
However, McKeand had no ambition for a seat on the City Council and
stuck to his work in court, of which he was really fond.
His readiness and resource were extraordinary and he said and did the
most startling things without offending the most straight-laced
judicial persons. Hopwood was presiding in a third court at the
assizes, trying some of the minor prisoners. An old woman indicted for
larceny had given McKeand a dock defence, and he rushed in at the last
moment to make a speech on her behalf. It was clear he had not had
time to study the depositions, but a few words from Ernest Jordan, who
was devilling the case, put him on the right line, and he was soon in
the middle of an eloquent harangue. Coming to the end of it he
exclaimed, “And what, gentlemen, did the poor woman say when the
magistrate’s clerk asked her for her defence. I will read you her very
words, and I think you will agree with me that they bear the stamp of
conscious innocence.” Ernest Jordan tried to stem the torrent of his
eloquence here, feeling sure he was remembering another set of
depositions, but it was no use. McKeand seized the papers and turned
them rapidly over. “Let me read you her exact words. Ha! Here we are.
Oh! H’m!” He faltered a little when he saw them. “Well, gentlemen,
this uneducated woman does not put it as you or I would put it, but I
said I would read her words, and I will. What she says is: ‘How the
hell could I have the ―――― boots when he was wearing them?’ And,
gentlemen,” continued McKeand in a concluding burst of eloquence, “I
ask you, with some confidence, how the hell could she?”
Charley McKeand must have been seriously thinking of taking silk when
the end came, and a terrible end it was both to himself and his
friends. After the summer vacation I went round to his house to see
him, and found him on the eve of a visit to London to see Sir
Frederick Treves.
The Manchester doctors had told him that he was suffering from cancer,
and that they feared it was hopeless to operate. He was very calm
about it, and did not expect any better verdict, but he thought it
satisfactory to take another opinion. The opinion went against him,
but he returned to his work, and for three months, though in great
pain and under sentence of lingering death, continued his work with
cheerfulness and energy. It was a noble example to those of us who
fret over small troubles, and I do not think it was lost on any who
witnessed it. In December he became too ill to continue work, and gave
up his chambers. I last saw him at Brighton. We dined together, and I
sat telling him old circuit stories and recalling cases we had fought
together until late into the night. He came to the door to see me off,
and I said I would look him up at home when he returned. He shook his
head, and said with his delightful smile, “Not a bit of it, Parry. We
have had an excellent evening, and this is the time to say good-bye.”
He died a few weeks afterwards, having been spared long enough to see
his only child. Until the tragedy happened I do not think any of us
had fully understood what a force of quiet bravery there was in
Charley McKeand.
I suppose I ought to remember Gully as Lord Selby, but for the life of
me I cannot. As Gully we loved and admired him, and as Gully he will
always remain to those of us who are proud to have been his juniors.
Undoubtedly he was one of the best and most inspiring leaders that a
band of advocates could honour.
There were those who said that Gully had had all the life hammered out
of him by Charles Russell, but there was no truth in this at all. For
years he had stood up against Russell in case after case, and it must
be agreed that anyone who came in contact with that forceful genius
had to stand a fair share of hammering. But Gully was chosen for the
part because he was the fittest to enact it, and when Russell “went
special” Gully naturally took his place as leader of the circuit, a
position he held until he retired to a more honourable office. I was
both with and against Gully in many cases. A barrister, like an actor
or a sailor, is dependent for his happiness on his companions, and
especially his superiors. Gully was peculiarly courteous and
considerate to his juniors, Russell was often the reverse. The latter
would turn round to a junior and, not getting the immediate answer he
wanted, say, “What on earth are you doing?”
“Taking a note,” one junior replied with conscious rectitude.
“Don’t,” said Russell with an explosive interjection; “attend to the
case.”
It must not be thought that Russell was only rude to his juniors. Let
us remember with pleasure that he was the advocate who, when asked by
a Law Lord for some authority for a proposition, called out in his
most rasping voice, “Usher! Go into the library and bring me any
elementary book on common law.”
But just as Russell’s manner cannot be reproduced in print because it
was unprintable, so the charm of Gully’s presence eludes you in words
that give an effect of weakness and softness which was not really his
quality.
I once heard a Lancaster juryman coming out of court say “I likes Mr.
Gully, he speaks so gentlemanlike.” This word does not quite convey
its meaning in the printed form, you want the burr of the North
Country in its pronunciation and the affectionate tone in which it was
uttered, and the smile of content that lighted up the speaker’s face
as he thought of Gully. One secret of Gully’s success as an advocate
was conscience. I doubt if any advocate is worth his salt without a
highly developed conscience. With Gully it was not only there, but it
worked automatically, and he never argued with it. He did the straight
thing naturally. And Gully was like Charley McKeand, a great comrade.
He had a high ideal of circuit life, as those who went the circuit
under his leadership can testify. I think of him as a gentleman in the
real old English sense of the word, such as Master Izaak Walton knew
in the friend he describes as “learned and humble, valiant and
inoffensive, virtuous and communicable.”
I went into the corridors of the Strangeways Courts the other day, and
ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my early days. Very few were
the familiar faces. I have no doubt the old circuit is as full of
laughter and good fellowship as ever it was, but to me it is a memory,
and in the foreground of the memory stand the figures of two dear
comrades, Gully and Charley McKeand.