LONDON LEC rAL LETTER. London, May 4, 1892. model to all who wished to attain high excellence A RECENT instance of organized public folly in the manipulation of the voice. Some one hav is the formation of a Witnesses' Protection ing written to Lord Coleridge on the subject, ex Society. It is difficult to realize the mental oper tracted from him the following interesting reply : ations of those who engage in the manufacture of "I am really quite unconscious of the faculty which idiotic associations. Lately we had a good deal of you say the ' Manchester guardian ' ascribes to me : newspaper correspondence on the subject of crossand 1 am certainly quite unaware of any art or method examination, many timid citizens being apparently by which the result you speak of is produced, if in of opinion that it was exercised for no purpose deed produced it be. The only rule I have ever fol save oppression and insult. With persons of this lowed is one taught me by Bishop Blomfield of type it is impossible to argue. I suppose the Wit London many years ago. He was a great orator, and nesses' Protection Society is the outcome of some had a most beautiful and effective mode of speaking such range of ideas. Its professed objects are He told me that he always spoke in his natural con (1) to protect witnesses from insult by counsel; versational voice, never allowed himself to get into a (2) to put the matter of contempt of court into falsetto, and always kept his voice equably up to the end of his sentences. If these are peculiarities, they the hands of a jury; and (3) to raise a fund to in are really, as far as I know, the only things in which demnify contumacious witnesses from pecuniary my speaking differs from that of anybody else" loss, provided that the questions they refuse to answer reflect upon their honor, and are at the Patent cases have of late been earning an evil same time irrelevant to the issues of the case. It notoriety. They last for days and weeks, the ordi is not likely that we shall hear much more of this 1 nary despatch of judicial business being thereby disastrously hindered. Public sentiment on the society. subject cannot be better expressed than in the The extent to which young and thoughtless per sons have been made the victims of betting agents following words used recently by the Master of and such like social parasites has led to a useful the Rolls, Lord Esher : — enactment, The Betting and Loan (Infants) Act. "It used to be said that there was something catch It provides that any person shall be guilty of a ing in a horse case, that it made the witnesses per misdemeanor who, for the purpose of earning jure themselves as a matter of course. It seems to commission, reward, or other profit, sends or causes 1 me that there is something catching in a patent case, to be sent to a person whom he knows to be an which makes everybody argue and ask questions to infant, any circular, notice, advertisement, tele an interminable extent. A patent case with no more gram, or other document which invites, or may difficult question to try than any other case, instead of lasting six hours, is invariably made to last six reasonably be implied to invite, the person receiv ing it to make any bet or wager, or to enter into days, if not twelve The moment there is a patent any betting or wagering transaction. It is to be case, one can see it before the case is opened or called in the list. How can we see it? We can see hoped the Act will not be allowed to remain a it by a pile of books as high as this [holding up the dead letter. papers invariably], one set for each counsel, one set A good suggestion was made in the " Law for each judge; and by the voluminous short-hand Times " lately to the effect that when money has notes we know here is a patent case. Now, what is been borrowed on mortgage and the debt has been the result of all this? Why, that a man had better have his patent infringed, or have anything happen paid off, a recognizance should by statute be dis pensed with, and that a simple receipt indorsed to him in this world short of losing all his family by influenza, than have a dispute about a patent. His on the mortgage should be declared to be suffi cient to revert the estate in the mortgagor. This patent is swallowed up and he is ruined. Whose fault is it? It is really not the fault of the law; it is might very well form a provision of some amend the fault of the way of conducting the law in a patent ing Conveyancing Act in the near future. The case." Lord Chief-Justice's great powers of speech and As usual in the case of legal abuses, the evil is graces of elocution are well known; the other day one of the leading newspapers held him up as a more apparent than the remedy.
- „*
