the Solicitor-General, Sir R. P. Collier, and Mr. (now Sir Jamesj Hannen, conducted the prosecution. Two years later, " the London tailors"— Druitt, Partridge, and the rest — were tried before Baron Bramwell for picket ing and intimidation during the great strike. Mr. Coleridge, Q. C, the present Lord ChiefJustice, Serjeant Parry, and Hardinge Giffard defended the prisoners; but the law was too strong for the advocates, and a conviction followed. " I lay it down," said Baron Bram well to the jury, " without hesitation, that whenever two or more persons agree that they will by molestation, annoyance, threats, intimidation, or any other manner of coer cion, — not by persuasion, — influence the minds, wishes, and wills of others as to the modes in which they should or should not bestow their labor, the persons who so act are guilty of a criminal offence." In 1868 came the Fenian trials. Here the AttorneyGeneral (Sir J. B. Karslake), the SolicitorGeneral (Sir Balliol Brett, now Lord Esher, Master of the Rolls), and Mr. Giffard ap peared for the Crown; but only a single con viction was obtained. Montagu Williams and Edward Clarke, now a Knight and Solici tor-General, had been retained for the de fence. Mr. Giffard was a member of the Welsh Circuit, and at the Glamorganshire Assizes held at Cardiff in July, 1869, he was pitted against Mr. Grove, Q. C, in the strange case of " Esther Lyons." This was an ac tion raised by Barnett Lyons, a Jew and a money-lender in Cardiff, against a Welsh dissenting minister and his wife, for having enticed away his daughter Esther with the view of converting her to Christianity. Mr. Grove was an eminent man of science; his name is associated with a galvanic battery of some notoriety; he is the author of a work on the correlation of physical forces; he en joyed the reputation of being the best patent lawyer of his day; he was for many years a Justice of the High Court, and is now a Privy Councillor. But as a nisi prius advo cate he was helpless in the hands of Hard inge Giffard; and the money-lender got a
verdict for .£50, to the surprise and against the charge of the presiding judge, Mr. Baron Channell. In the same year Giffard, together with Karslake, Coleridge, Hawkins (now a Judge of the High Court), and other celebrities, successfully defended the Directors in the famous Overend Gurney prosecution. On the first Tichborne trial he appeared, with Serjeant Ballantine, for the plaintiff, who was afterward represented by Dr. Kenealey. In 1871 Boulton and Park were tried for frequenting theatres and other places of pub lic resort in women's clothes. Hardinge Giffard prosecuted with the law officers of the day and Sir Henry James, but failed to secure a conviction. In Belt v. Lawes Sir Hardinge Giffard was matched against Charles Russell, now the unchallenged leader of the common-law bar. Not without dust and heat do such rivals engage, — "They brandish law 'gainst law; The grinding of such blades, each parry of each, Throws terrible sparks off, over and above the thrusts, And makes more sinister the fight to the eye, Than the very wounds that follow!" But Hardinge Giffard remained master of the field. The plaintiff, for whom he ap peared, got £5,000 damages; and the Court of Appeal declined to disturb the verdict, at least to his disadvantage. Belt v. Lawes was an action of libel. The defendant had al leged that certain busts and pieces of sculp ture attributed to Mr. Belt, and claimed by him as his own, had in fact been executed by persons in his employ. The case was tried before Mr Baron Huddleston at Westmin ster; the trial lasted for forty-three days, and the present Attorney-General shared in the defeat of Sir Charles Russell. Lord Halsbury has carried with him to the woolsack not only the tact and acumen of the Old Bailey lawyer, but the patience and courtesy which Old Bailey lawyers so sel dom possess. He will learn Equity by asso ciating with the Earl of Selborne and Lord Macnaghten. a. w. R.
