MR. JUSTICE MAULE.
Of course, in those days there were judges of the utmost strictness
as there are now, who insisted that the rules of evidence should be
rigidly adhered to. I may mention, one, whose abilities were of a
remarkable order, and whose memory is still fresh in the minds of many
of my contemporaries--I mean Mr. Justice Maule. His asthmatic cough
was the most interesting and amusing cough I ever heard, especially
when he was saying anything more than usually humorous, which was not
infrequently. He was a man of great wit, sound sense, and a curious
humour such as I never heard in any other man. He possessed, too, a
particularly keen apprehension. To those who had any real ability
he was the most pleasant of Judges, but he had little love for
mediocrities. No man ever was endowed with a greater abhorrence of
hypocrisy. I learnt a great deal in watching him and noting his
observations. One day a very sad case was being tried. It was that of
a man for killing an infant, and it was proposed by the prosecution to
call as a witness a little brother of the murdered child.
The boy's capacity to give evidence, however, was somewhat doubted by
the counsel for the Crown, John Clark, and it did honour to his sense
of fairness. Having asked the little boy a question or two as to
the meaning of an oath, he said he had some doubt as to whether the
witness should be admitted to give evidence, as he did not seem to
understand the nature of an oath, and the boy was otherwise deficient
in religious knowledge.
He was asked the usual sensible questions which St. Thomas Aquinas
himself would have been puzzled to answer; and being a mere child of
seven--or at most eight--years of age, without any kind of education,
was unable to state what the exact nature of an oath was.
Having failed in this, he was next asked what, when they died, became
of people who told lies.
"If he knows that, it's a good deal more than I do," said Maule.
"Attend to me," said the Crown counsel. "Do you know that it's wicked
to tell lies?"
"Yes, sir," the boy answered.
"I don't think," said the counsel for the prosecution, "it would be
safe to swear him, my lord; he does not seem to know anything about
religion at all.--You can stand down."
"Stop a minute, my boy," says Maule; "let me ask you a question or
two. You have been asked about a future state--at least I presume that
was at the bottom of the gentleman's question. I should like to know
what you have been taught to believe. What will become of _you_, my
little boy, when you die, if you are so wicked as to tell a lie?"
"_Hell fire_," answered the boy with great promptitude and boldness.
"Right," said Maule. "Now let us go a little further. Do you mean to
say, boy, that you would go to hell fire for telling _any_ lie?"
"_Hell fire_, sir," said the boy emphatically, as though it were
something to look forward to rather than shun.
"Take time, my boy," said Maule; "don't answer hurriedly; think it
over. Suppose, now, you were accused of stealing an apple; how would
that be in the next world, think you?"
"_Hell fire_, my lord!"
"Very good indeed. Now let us suppose that you were disobedient to
your parents, or to one of them; what would happen in that case?"
"_Hell fire_, my lord!"
"Exactly; very good indeed. Now let me take another instance, and
suppose that you were sent for the milk in the morning, and took _just
a little sip_ while you were carrying it home; how would that be as
regards your future state?"
"_Hell fire_!" repeated the boy.
Upon this Clark suggested that the lad's absolute ignorance of the
nature of an oath and Divine things rendered it imprudent to call him.
"I don't know about that," said Maule; "he seems to me to be very
sound, and most divines will tell you he is right."
"He does not seem to be competent," said the counsel.
"I beg your pardon," returned the judge, "I think he is a very good
little boy. He thinks that for every wilful fault he will go to hell
fire; and he is very likely while he believes that doctrine to be most
strict in his observance of truth. If you and I believed that such
would be the penalty for every act of misconduct we committed, we
should be better men than we are. Let the boy be sworn."
On one occasion, before Maule, I had to defend a man for murder. It
was a terribly difficult case, because there was no defence except the
usual one of insanity.
The court adjourned for lunch, and Woollet (who was my junior) and I
went to consultation. I was oppressed with the difficulty of my task,
and asked Woollet what he thought I could do.
"Oh," said he in his sanguine way, "make a hell of a speech. You'll
pull him through all right. Let 'em have it."
"I'll give them as much burning eloquence as I can manage," said I,
in my youthful ardour; "but what's the use of words against facts? We
must really stand by the defence of insanity; it is all that's left."
"Call the clergyman," said Woollet; "he'll help us all he can."
With that resolution we returned to court. I made my speech for the
defence, following Woollet's advice as nearly as practicable, and
really blazed away. I think the jury believed there was a good deal in
what I said, for they seemed a very discerning body and a good deal
inclined to logic, especially as there was a mixture of passion in it.
We then called the clergyman of the village where the prisoner lived.
He said he had been Vicar for thirty-four years, and that up to very
recently, a few days before the murder, the prisoner had been a
regular attendant at his church. He was a married man with a wife and
two little children, one seven and the other nine.
"Did the wife attend your ministrations, too?" asked Maule.
"Not so regularly. Suddenly," continued the Vicar, after suppressing
his emotion, "without any apparent cause, the man became _a
Sabbath-breaker_, and absented himself from church."
This evidence rather puzzled me, for I could not understand its
purport. Maule in the meantime was watching it with the keenest
interest and no little curiosity. He was not a great believer in the
defence of insanity--except, occasionally, that of the solicitor
who set it up--and consequently watched the Vicar with scrutinizing
intensity.
"Have you finished with your witness, Mr. Woollet?" his lordship
inquired.
"Yes, my lord."
Maule then took him in hand, and after looking at him steadfastly for
about a minute, said,--
"You say, sir, that you have been Vicar of this parish for
_four-and-thirty years_?"
"Yes, my lord."
"And during that time I dare say you have regularly performed the
services of the Church?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Did you have week-day services as well?"
"Every Tuesday, my lord."
"And did you preach your own sermons?"
"With an occasional homily of the Church."
"Your own sermon or discourse, with an occasional homily? And was this
poor man a regular attendant at all your services during the whole
time you have been Vicar?"
"Until he killed his wife, my lord."
"That follows--I mean up to the time of this Sabbath-breaking you
spoke of he regularly attended your ministrations, and then killed his
wife?"
"Exactly, my lord."
"Never missed the sermon, discourse, or homily of the Church, Sunday
or week-day?"
"That is so, my lord."
"Did you write your own sermons, may I ask?"
"Oh yes, my lord."
Maule carefully wrote down all that our witness said, and I began to
think the defence of insanity stood on very fair grounds, especially
when I perceived that Maule was making some arithmetical calculations.
But you never could tell by his manner which way he was going, and
therefore we had to wait for his next observation, which was to this
effect:--
"You have given yourself, sir, a very excellent character, and
doubtless, by your long service in the village, have richly
deserved it. You have, no doubt, also won the affection of all your
parishioners, probably that of the Bishop of your diocese, by your
incomparable devotion to your parochial duties. The result, however,
of your indefatigable exertions, so far as this unhappy man is
concerned, comes to this--"
His lordship then turned and addressed his observations on the result
to me.
"This gentleman, Mr. Hawkins, has written with his own pen and
preached or read with his own voice to this unhappy prisoner about
_one hundred and four Sunday sermons or discourses, with an occasional
homily, every year_."
There was an irresistible sense of the ludicrous as Maule uttered, or
rather growled, these words in a slow enunciation and an asthmatical
tone. He paused as if wondering at the magnitude of his calculations,
and then commenced again more slowly and solemnly than before.
"These," said he, "added to the week-day services--make--exactly
_one hundred and fifty-six sermons, discourses, and homilies for the
year_." (Then he stared at me, asking with his eyes what I thought of
it.) "These, again, being continued over a space of time, comprising,
as the reverend gentleman tells us, no less than _thirty-four years_,
give us a grand total of _five thousand three hundred and four
sermons, discourses, or homilies_ during this unhappy man's life."
Maule's eyes were now riveted on the clergyman as though he were an
accessory to the murder.
"Five thousand three hundred and four," he repeated, "by the same
person, however respectable and beloved as a pastor he might be, was
what few of us could have gone through unless we were endowed with as
much strength of mind as power of endurance. I was going to ask you,
sir, did the idea ever strike you when you talked of this unhappy
being suddenly leaving your ministrations and turning Sabbath-breaker,
that after thirty-four years he might want a little change? Would
it not be reasonable to suppose that the man might think he had had
enough of it?"
"It might, my lord."
"And would not that in your judgment, instead of showing that he was
insane, prove that he was _a very sensible man_?"
The Vicar did not quite assent to this, and as he would not dissent
from the learned Judge, said nothing.
"And," continued Maule, "that he was perfectly sane, although he
murdered his wife?"
All this was very clever, not to say facetious, on the part of the
learned Judge; but as I had yet to address the jury, I was resolved to
take the other view of the effect of the Vicar's sermons, and I did
so. I worked Maule's quarry, I think, with some little effect: for
after all his most strenuous exertions to secure a conviction, the
jury believed, probably, that no man's mind could stand the ordeal;
and, further, that any doubt they might have, after seeing the two
children of the prisoner in court dressed in little black frocks, and
sobbing bitterly while I was addressing them, would be given in the
prisoner's favour, which it was.
This incident in my life is not finished. On the same evening I was
dining at the country house of a Mr. Hardcastle, and near me sat an
old inhabitant of the village where the tragedy had been committed.
"You made a touching speech, Mr. Hawkins," said the old inhabitant.
"Well," I answered, "it was the best thing I could do in the
circumstances."
"Yes," he said; "but I don't think you would have painted the little
home in such glowing colours if you had seen what I saw last week when
I was driving past the cottage. No, no; I think you'd have toned down
a bit."
"What was it?" I asked.
"Why," said the old inhabitant, "the little children who sobbed so
violently in court this morning, and to whom you made such pathetic
reference, were playing on an ash-heap near their cottage; and they
had a poor cat with a string round its neck, swinging backwards and
forwards, and as they did so they sang,--
This is the way poor daddy will go!
This is the way poor daddy will go!'
Such, Mr. Hawkins, was their excessive grief!"
Yes, but it got the verdict.