Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/668

 654 V. BENCH AND BAR says from the bench, " that any one should get to his law about a matter of which the jury can take cognizance, so that with a dozen or a half dozen rascals, he could swear an honest man out of his goods." He even corrects in open court statements of his fellow judges as to the law. One day he corrects a ruling of Hervey the Hasty in spite of that judge's protests. He is sharp with the lawyers. To Malberthorpe, counsel in great practice, he says : " You talk at random." To Passeley, a leader of the bar, he says in an action to quiet title : " There are forty fools here who think that, as soon as one has in such case acknowledged, there is nothing more to do, although he claims more than he has. Answer by what title you claim in fee." He some- times jokes from the bench. The law was that a villein who had gone to a city and remained there for a year became free, but Metingham had ruled that if the villein returned to his villein tenement again he lost his freedom. Bereford illustrates this point by a joke. " I have heard tell of a man who was taken in a brothel and hanged, and if he had stayed at home, it would not have happened. So here, if he was a free citizen, why didn't he remain in the city.? " Some of Bereford's jokes are too broad for quotation. Even if the reporters were " grave and sad men," as Coke says, they always record Bereford's highly seasoned anecdotes with apparent zest. Hervey de Staunton, who is called the Hasty, is quick to answer. Mutford, a leader of the bar, asserted that a female serf who became free by marrying a free man, re- turned to her servile status as soon as her husband died. " That is false," said one judge. " Worse than false, it is a heresy," added Staunton. In another case a younger law- yer was reproved by Staunton for a poor plea, and was told to go and seek advice of counsel. Instead of being angry, the lawyer went out and came back with two eminent counsel, Willoughby and Estrange. But this is the ordinary thing. Whenever an attorney or a young lawyer attempts to plead without a Serjeant, he is quickly detected in an error and told to go out and get counsel. On the circuit Staunton is reproved by his fellow judges for making a ruling before