Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/533

 488

LORD BOWEN. IN an interesting and appreciative article in The Law Times, "E. M." relates the fol lowing anecdotes of Lord Bowen, the " Claim ant " referred to being the famous Tichborne claimant : Bowen appeared against the Claimant — with Coleridge as his leader — both in the trial at Nisi Prius before Chief Justice Bovill and in the criminal trial "at Bar" before Lord Chief Justice Cockburn and Justices Mellor and Lush, and rendered his leader in valuable aid in both. It was Bowen, it was said, who invented in consultation the phrase, "Would you be surprised to hear that ?" with which Coleridge introduced so many of his questions to the Claimant in his crossexamination. The phrase passed into a popu lar catchword, but without its real signifi cance being understood. " The object with which it was devised," says Sir Herbert Ste phen, " was to abstain from giving in the form of the question the least hint as to whether it would be correctly answered in the affirm ative or in the negative." Three long years did this portentous case drag on, but it gave Bowen an opportunity of describing the scene in a graphic little feu d'esprit : "Amid the case that never ends, We sat and held a brief, Mathew And one anda withered I, a pair of leaf." friends, "Mathew " was the present Lord Jus tice — " a withered leaf," as he facetiously termed himself, because the prolongation of the trial was alienating all his clients. "Meanwhile about us and afar Again arose the storm; Kenealy and the Chief at war, Each in the best of form. Of virtue, science, letters, truth, They talked till all was blue;

Of Paul de Kock, the bane of youth, Of Bamfield, Moore, Carew : If fools are oftener fat or thin Which first forget their tongue; Why all tobacco mixed with gin Is poison to the young: And whether Fielding's better bred. Or Sterne so full of fun : Poor Mathew sighed and shook his head. The will of God be done." A good lawyer can never be said to be wasted on the Bench, yet there is a great deal of judicial work at Nisi Prius which can be as well, if not better, done by a man of no great talent or legal erudition, but gifted with shrewdness and knowledge of the world, and familiar with the rules of evidence. Bowen's intellect was too fine an instrument for this rough work — cutting blocks with a razor; his judgment too critical and fastidi ous; juries did not understand him. The following story is a good illustration : He was trying a case of burglary with a Welsh jury, and it was urged for the defence that the prisoner was in the habit of walking on the house-tops at midnight, and had merely taken off his boots and dropped into the house out of curiosity. In summing up, Bowen said to the jury : " If you believe that the prisoner considers the house-tops the proper place for an evening stroll, and that the desire to inspect the inside of the houses was but a natural and excusable curi osity, you will acquit him and will approve his conduct in showing so much considera tion as to take off his boots for fear of dis turbing the sleepers." The irony was. un marked; the jury took him seriously, and acquitted the prisoner. He never tried the ironical vein again. It recalls the story of Lord Kenyon trying an action for a penalty for shooting game without a license. " Gen