“It ish no mishtake at all,” he cried excitedly. “Mr. X. ish a very bad
man. He and the Defendant are both cap makers, and are vot you call in
English a long firm.”
This was too much for Mr. X.—a most respectable tradesman—and he called
out: “My Lorts, may I speak?” Without waiting for leave, he continued
very solemnly: “My Lorts, I have sworn by Jehovah that every vord I say
ish true, but I vill go furder than that. I vill put down ten pounds in
cash, and it may be taken avay from me if vot I say ish not true.”
The offer was made with such fervour and sincerity that I thought it best
to enter into the spirit of the thing.
Turning to the little man, I asked: “Are you ready to put down ten pounds
that what you say is true?”
He looked blank and lost, and, shaking his head, murmured sadly, “No, it
ish too motch.”
I pointed out to him how his attitude about the ten pounds went to
confirm the evidence for the Defendant, and seeing his case slipping away
from under his feet, he cried out, as if catching at the last straw, “My
Lorts thish ish not mine own case, thish ish mine farder’s case, and I
vill put down ten pounds of mine farder’s monish that vot I say ish true.”
The offer was not accepted, and the Defendant was not committed. But the
story throws light on the rudimentary ideas that some Yiddishers have of
the administration of justice.
And now we have finished the list of cases, but there are a few
stragglers left in Court. Some of them have been in the wrong Court, or
come on the wrong day; some have applications to make, or advice to ask.
I always make a point now of finding out what these folk want before
leaving the bench. I remember in my early days a man coming before me the
first thing one morning, and saying he had sat in my Court until the end
of yesterday’s proceedings.
“Why didn’t you come up at the end of the day,” I asked, “and make your
application then?”
“I was coming,” he replied, “but at the end of last case you was off your
chair an’ bolted through yon door like a rabbit.” I think his description
was exaggerated, but I rise in a more leisurely way nowadays, though I am
still glad when the day’s work is over.
I do not know that what I have written will convey any clear idea of the
day of my life that I have been asked to portray. I know it is in many
respects a very dull grey life, but it has its brighter moments in the
possibilities of usefulness to others. I am not at all sure that the
black-letter jurisdiction of a big urban County Court ought not to be
worked by a parish priest rather than by a lawyer. I know that it wants a
patience, a sympathy, and a belief in the goodness of human nature that
we find in those rare characters who give up the good things in this
world for the sake of working for others. I am very conscious of my own
imperfections; but I was once greatly encouraged by a criticism passed
upon me which I accidentally overheard, and which I am conceited enough
to repeat. I was going away from the Court, and passed two men walking
slowly away. I had decided against them, and they were discussing why I
had done so.
“Well, ’ow on earth ’e could do it I don’t see, do you, Bill?”
“’E’s a fool.”
“Yes, ’e’s a fool, a —— fool, but ’e did ’is best.”
“Ay. I think ’e did ’is best.”
After all, coming from such source or indeed from any source, the
suggestion contained in the conversation was very gratifying. I have
often thought that one might rest beneath an unkinder epitaph than this:
HE WAS
A —— FOOL,
BUT
HE DID HIS BEST.