CHAPTER XVIII

A JUDGE'S DUTIES-A NARROW ESCAPE-SOME

WITNESSES

I HAVE always thought that a Judge is deserving of much sympathy when it falls to his lot to discharge that most painful of all tasks-namely, sentencing a fellow-being to death. Happily, during my twentyfive years on the Bench I have had to pronounce but few death sentences, and all of them were in cases in which the crime was of a terrible and deliberate nature -a fact which, to a slight extent, tends to deaden feelings of pity for the criminal.

Once I had to sentence a man to death for the brutal murder of his wife. He was living with another woman, and, in order to marry her, wished to get rid of his wife and mother-in-law. He killed them with the blow of a spade while they slept, and, locking the door of the room in which his two small children also slept, tried to make his escape. The terrified children were for over twenty-four hours locked in with the dead bodies. Their father intended to leave Ireland, but was arrested before he could get aboard a vessel. Had he not taken some of his possessions with him in a tin box he might have escaped.

At the trial witnesses swore that they had seen a man walking at a great speed along the roads on the day of the murder. Some of them could not recall the prisoner's features, but all were unanimous in swearing that the man carried a tin box. When I assumed the black cap to pronounce sentence of death, the prisoner cursed me in the most dramatic manner, but the day before the execution I received a letter from him in which he begged me to forgive him for the language he had used towards me, and, with many expressions of contrition for his crime, admitted the justice of his sentence.

I remember trying a "horse case" in which evidence was given as to a jockey having pulled a race-horse so as to prevent him passing the winning-post. His guilt was established beyond a doubt, and I was amused to hear that his sole comment on the case was, Who got at the Judge? How was he got at, and how much did he receive ?"

I once had a narrow escape from death while in the discharge of my duties as Judge. A missile in the shape of a stone about the size of a hen's egg was flung at me from the dock by a prisoner, and was within an ace of hitting me. The occurrence took place at Belfast, where a man who had been a soldier was charged with burglary and found guilty. While I was sentencing him to two months' imprisonment he bent down, and, taking a stone which he had concealed in his clothes, flung it at me. It

fell somewhere at the back of the bench. How the prisoner came to be so armed puzzled us all. On inquiry, it was discovered that on his way from the cells he had to go through a long subterranean passage paved with cobble-stones, one of which he had managed to pick up, evidently with the intention of flinging it at the Judge should a verdict of guilty

be brought against him. Ever since this ugly incident prisoners are always carefully searched before being placed in the dock.

I recollect two rather amusing instances of the readiness of witnesses to reply to questions the import of which they wholly misunderstand.

In a Probate case before me the question arose as to whether a testator who made a will twenty-four hours before his death was, at the time of his so doing, mentally capable. The evidence showed that the deceased was visited on the day preceding his death by several of his neighbours, who described him as being more or less in a state of stupor and collapse. I put the question to one rather voluble witness at the end of his evidence: "I gather, then, that the deceased gentleman, when you saw him, was lying in a coma?" "Oh no, my lord," he replied without hesitation; "it was just an ordinary bed he was lying in."

The other story is of the same nature:

A Dublin dock-labourer alleged that he had been attacked by a lascar who had come from his native India as stoker on board a steamer berthed for the

moment in the port of Dublin. The plaintiff swore that this lascar had assaulted him, abused him, and called him a blackguard. "In the vernacular, I presume?" I said. "No, my lord," replied the witness readily; "it was on the quay."

CHAPTER XIX

LORD JUSTICE FITZGIBBON

No wonder the Irish Bar is proud of its past glories, when it can boast of having had among its members such men as Curran, Whiteside, Bushe and Butt; in more recent years surely its glorious traditions have in no wise been unworthily sustained. As I write, the names Naish, Fitzgibbon, Palles, come to my mind all unbidden.

Lord Justice Fitzgibbon was one of our most eloquent and erudite judges. His career, when at Trinity College, was most distinguished. His mind was extremely subtle, and he generally formed his judgments through a strange process of reasoning. It was impossible to predict what view of a case he would take, and the ordinary judicial mind often found a difficulty in following his mental windings and twistings.* He possessed a wonderful knack,

*It must not be thought for one moment that Lord Justice Fitzgibbon was a trimmer. He was ever good-humoured and willing to temporise for peace' sake.

A friend of ours wanted to see him on important business, and called at his house in the morning, when he knew he was most likely to find the Lord Justice at home. The Lord Justice himself met him in the hall, and said: "I am sorry, but I absolutely cannot speak with you now. It is nearly eleven o'clock, and I must be in court by eleven o'clock."