The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) | Page 3

there was something sad about it all. The horse moved slowly along, at almost a snail's pace, while behind walked a poor, sad couple with their heads bowed down, and each with a hand on the tail-board of the cart. They were evidently overwhelmed with grief.
Happily we have no such processions now; even Justice itself has been humanized to some extent, and the law's cruel severity mitigated. The cart contained the rude shell into which had been laid the body of this poor man and woman's only son, _a youth of seventeen, hanged that morning at Bedford Jail for setting fire to a stack of corn_!
He was now being conveyed to the village of Willshampstead, six miles from Bedford, there to be laid in the little churchyard where in his childhood he had played. He was the son of very respectable labouring people of Willshampstead; had been misled into committing what was more a boyish freak than a crime, and was hanged. That was all the authorities could do for him, and they did it. This is the remotest and the saddest reminiscence of my life, and the only sad one I mean to relate, if I can avoid it.
But years afterwards, when I became a judge, this picture, photographed on my mind as it was, gave me many a lesson which I believe was turned to good account on the judicial bench. It was mainly useful in impressing on my mind the great consideration of the surrounding circumstances of every crime, the degree of guilt in the criminal, and the difference in the degrees of the same kind of offence. About this I shall say something hereafter.
I remained at this school until I had acquired all the learning my father thought necessary for my future position, as he intended it to be, and much more than I thought necessary, unless I was to get my living by teaching Latin and Greek.
In due course I was articled to my worthy uncle, the Clerk of the Peace, and, had I possessed my present experience, should have known that it was a diplomatic move of the most profound policy to enable me, if anything happened to him, to succeed to that important dignity.
Had I been ambitious of wealth, there were other offices which my uncle held, to the great satisfaction of the county as well as his own. These would naturally descend to me, and I should have been in a position of great prominence in the county, with a very respectable income.
But I hated the drudgery of an attorney's office. In six months I saw enough of its documentary evidence to convince me that I hated it from my heart, and that nothing on earth would induce me to become a solicitor. I took good care, meek as I was, to show this determination to my friends. It was my only chance of escape. But while remaining there it was my duty to work, however hateful the task, and I did so.
Even this, to me, most odious business had its advantages in after-life. I attended one morning with my uncle the Petty Sessions of Hertford, where, no doubt, I was supposed to enlarge my knowledge of sessions practice; it certainly did so, for I knew nothing, and received a lesson, which is not only my earliest recollection, but my first experience in Advocacy.
At this Hertford Petty Sessional Division the chairman was a somewhat pompous clergyman, but very devoted to his duties. He was strict in his application of the law when he knew it, but it was fortunate for some delinquents, although unfortunate for others, that he did not always possess sufficient knowledge to act independently of his clerk's opinion, while the clerk's opinion did not always depend upon his knowledge of law.
An impudent vagabond was brought up before this clergyman charged with a violent and unprovoked assault on a man in a public-house. He was said to have gone into the room where the prosecutor was, and to have taken up his jug of ale and appropriated the contents to his own use without the owner's consent. The prosecutor, annoyed at the outrage, rose, and was immediately knocked down by the interloper, and in falling cut his head.
There was to my untutored mind no defence, but the accused was a man of remarkable cunning and not a little ingenuity. He knew the magistrate well, and his special weakness, which was vanity. By his knowledge the man completely outwitted his adversary, and shifted the charge from himself on to the prosecutor's shoulders. The curious thing was he cross-examined the reverend chairman instead of the witness, which I thought a master-stroke of policy, if not advocacy.
"You know this public-house, sir?" he asked.
The reverend gentleman nodded.
"I put it to yourself, sir, as a