[Illustration: T]HERE is, or was, in this town a Public-house, wherein
the administration of justice was, and may still be, wont to be nightly
burlesqued by certain buffoons under the name of a Judge and Jury Club.
Let us hope that this was the only Court of Law which could possibly
have been in the eye of the ATTORNEY-GENERAL when, in the course of his
concise oration delivered on behalf of the Infant against the Claimant,
he spoke, with reference to the latter, as follows:--
"Besides, such is the pleasantry--I would not say the profit--of
our English law, that if he fails in this case he may go at it
again with fresh witnesses, let us hope with fresh
counsel--(_laughter_)--at least with a fresh jury--I say nothing
of a fresh judge. (_Continued laughter._)"
The members of the Temperance League, and the United Kingdom Alliance
must surely have been shocked, as many as those who read and duly
considered the foregoing words, by the idea which they suggest of a
generally Fresh Court of Common Pleas. This horrid image was enough to
have unfixed their hair and made their excited hearts knock at their
ribs beyond the use of nature. Sobriety is so specially characteristic
of the Ermine that "sober as a Judge" is an adage; not, indeed, because
Judges are supposed not to drink, but to be able to drink any quantity.
Irreproachable with laxity in the discharge of their high functions,
British Judges are at all times incapable of getting tight.
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