< Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 09.pdf
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The Green Bag.

a judge should hold his office for life, more than any other person in public trust. A judge may be partial otherwise than to the Crown;' we have seen judges partial to the populace. A judge may become forward from age. A judge may grow unfit for his office in many ways. It was desirable that there should be a possibility of being de livered from him by a new king. That is now gone by an Act of Parliament ex gratia of the Crown." It is curious to note that John son denounced this measure affecting the judges even more vigorously than Junius. An anonymous writer, Zeno, having urged it as one of the merits of Lord Mansfield that he had made the judge independent of a demise of the Crown, Junius wrote : " First, then, the establishment of the judges in their places for life (which you tell us was advised by Lord Mansfield) was a concession merely to catch the people. It bore the appearance of a Royal bounty, but had nothing real in it. The judges were already for life, except in a demise. Your boasted Bill only provides that it shall not be in the power of the king's successor to remove them. At the best, therefore, it is only a legacy, not a gift, on the part of his present Majesty, since for him self he gives up nothing." The following passage from Boswell re minds one of Curran's defense of Judge John son : "We got into an argument whether the judges who went to India might with propriety engage in trade. Johnson warmly maintained that they might. ' For why,' he urged, 'should not judges get riches as well as those who deserve them less?' I said they should have sufficient salaries, and have nothing to take off their attention from the affairs of the public. Johnson: 'No judge, sir, can give his whole attention to his office; and it is very proper that he should employ what time he has to himself to his own ad vantage, in the most profitable manner!' 'Then, sir,' said Davies, who enlivened the dispute by making it somewhat dramatic, ' he may become an usurer; and when he is

going to the bench he maybe stopped — "Your Lordship cannot go yet; here isa bundle of invoices; several ships are about to sail." ' Johnson : ' Sir, you may as well say a judge should not have a house, for they may come and tell him, "Your Lordship's house is on fire"; and so, instead of minding the business of his court, he is to be occupied in getting the engine with the greatest speed. There is no end of this. Every judge who has land trades to a certain extent in corn or in cattle, and in the land itself. Undoubt edly his steward acts for him, and so do clerks for a great merchant. A judge may be a farmer, but he is not to geld his own pigs. A judge may play a little at cards for his amusement, but he is not to play at marbles, or chuck farthings in the piazza. No, sir, there is no profession to which a man gives a very great proportion of his time. It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how lit tle the mind is actually employed in the dis charge of any profession. No man would be a judge, upon the condition of being totally a judge. The best employed lawyer has his mind at work but for a small proportion of his time; a great deal of his occupation is merely mechanical.' (Boswell, loq.) ' I ar gued warmly against the judge training, and mentioned Hale as an instance of a perfect judge, who devoted himself entirely to his of fice.' Johnson: ' Hale, sir, attended to other things besides law; he left a great estate.' Boswell : ' That was because what he got ac cumulated without any exertion and anxiety on his part.'" The following conversation, relating to the relative merits of actors and lawyers will be read with some interest, in view of the eminence of the characters who engaged in it, and an incident in modern history. Bos well, loq. : "You say, Dr. Johnson, that Garrick exhibits himself for a shilling. In this respect he is only on a footing with a lawyer who exhibits himself for his fee, and even will maintain any nonsense or absurdity if the case requires it. Garrick refuses a play

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