Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/395

 360

Sacramanga v. Stamp, 5 C. P. D. 295, as to whether ship owners are liable for the loss of a cargo in a deviation for the purpose of sav ing life; Nugent r. Smith, i C. P. D. 423, on the liability of carriers by sea; Twycross v. Grant, 26 P.D. 469, a case of fraudulent pros pectus; Rouquette -и. Overman, ю Q. B. 524, as to the bearingof the lex loci of performance on bills of exchange; liâtes г: Hewitt, 2 Q. B. 595- upon the obligation to disclose material facts in contracts of insurance, and Frost i'. Knight, 7 Ex. in, where the doctrine of Höchster v. De la Tour, -2 E. & В. 678, was applied to a contract in which performance depended upon a contingency. It may be pointed out in this connection, that the sig nificance of Cockburn's important opinion in Goodwin v. Robarts, mentioned above, lies in its repudiation of Blackburn's conservative view of trade customs as expressed in Crouch v. Credit Foncier. 8 Q. B. 376. See, also, his learned opinion in Phillips i Eyre, 42, B. 225, another case arising out of the Jamaica insurrection; his elaborate dis-cussion of the nature and effect of foreign judgments in Gastrique í'. Imrie, 30 L. J. С. P. 177; and the celebrated ecclesiastical con troversy, Martin v. Mackonochie, 3 Q. B. D. 730; 4 Q. B. 697: 6 App. Cas. 424. in which the writ of prohibition issued by Cockburn was set aside on appeal. Lord Campbell records in his diary in Tune, 1856: "Having occasion for a new judge to succeed Erie, made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, I appointed Blackburn, the fittest man in Westminster Hall, al though wearing a stuff gown, whereas sev eral Whig Queen's Counsel, M. P's, were considering which of them would be the man, not dreaming that they could all be passed over. They got me well abused in the Times and other newspapers. . . . This was the sort of thing: 'Everybody has been going about town asking his neighbour, who is Mr. Colin Blackburn? The very ushers in the courts shake their heads and tell you they never heard of such a party.' 'His legal claims to this appointment stand at a mini

mum.' 'The only reason which can be as signed for this strange freak of the Chancel lor is that the new puisne judge is a Scotch man.' " But Lord Lynclhurst came to the rescue in the House of Lords. ''I have been asked," he said, "who is Mr. Blackburn, and a journal which takes us all to task by turns has asked somewhat indignantly, 'Who is Mr. Blackburn?' I take leave to answer that he is a very learned person, a very sound law yer, an admirable arguer of a law case and eminently fitted for a seat on the bench." Never was a prediction more completely realized. This unknown Scotch lawyer proved him self to be the greatest common law judge of the century, and was destined in his long career of nearly thirty years in the King's Bench, the Exchequer Chamber and the House of Lords to make a larger volume of substantial contributions to English law than any other judge in legal history except Coke and Mansfield. From the outset he easily held his own with such judges as Cockburn, Wightman. Lush. Archibald and Field, and it was not long before he was recognized as the corner stone of the Queen's Bench. In commercial law, of which he was completely master, he alone saved his court from being overshadowed by the authority of the Com mon Picas under Willes. In real property law, also, he had no superior among his as sociates, and he was such a good all-round lawyer that even in those branches where a colleague was something of a specialist he stood without difficulty in second place. An acute observer has thus described the Court of Queen's Bench in action during Black burn's supremacy: "So keen and alert was his mind, so full of the rapture of the strife, that in almost all cases it was he who in the point to point race made the running or picked up the scent. On such occasions all the papers and authorities in a case seemed to be drawn by a sort of magnetic attraction to his desk. And behind them he would sit with his wig on the back of his head, plung ing his short-sighted eyes into one and another, firing off questions in quick succès