What the Judge Saw: Being Twenty-Five Years in Manchester by One Who Has Done It

I go――but God knows when or why From smoky towns and cloudy sky To things (the honest truth to say) As bad――but in a different way. BYRON: “Farewell to Malta.” (_Amended by leav...

It may be a hut with a thatch on In a garden where roses grow, Or built of bad bricks with a patch on Of stucco, and twelve in a row; It may be a palace of crystal, With a splen...

As a great writer says, “I am naturally averse to egotism and hate self-laudation consumedly,” and yet I must tell this story once again, for it seems to me the natural motto of...

――is it not well that there should be what we call Professions, or Bread-studies (_Brodzwecke_) pre-appointed us? Here, circling like the gin-horse, for whom partial or total bl...

And by moving down to Manchester in Whit-week I found myself indeed plunged into a new world. For Whit-week, as I said, is a universal holiday among all sorts and conditions of...

The quarter sessions courts are some of the oldest criminal courts in the kingdom. Some time in the reign of Edward III. their quarterly sittings were ordained by statute, but l...

I have long gone about with a conviction that Sir Henry Wotton was right when he said that “hanging was the worst use man could be put to.” Not that I think he ever thrashed out...

Peter considered those bad bold ones who spoke evil of dignities were merely “presumptuous,” but I am on the side of Jude, who roundly assessed them to be “filthy dreamers.” Hap...

I suppose in early days the “stranger” must have been a sadly persecuted individual, else why should there be so many texts persuasively commending him to the care of the righte...

I suppose in a certain sense every brief or retainer or notice of motion or summons for directions is an alarum, or alarm, or call to arms; and each appearance in Court is in th...

Until each of us faithfully fulfils the first clause of his duty to his neighbour it seems unlikely that we shall see in the flesh a manifestation of the compleat citizen. I pre...

That reminds me that the little Welshman――and what race understands the rules of courtesy more truly――warns us against the ill manners of interrupting the story of our companion...

Shee said a witty thing to Lord Coleridge, who was puzzled with the Lancashire dialect. A witness, in describing a verbal encounter, said, “Then the defendant turned round and s...

That idea of soothing your particular fancy gives to me the very clearest image of play and playtime. And most men’s fancies take a deal of soothing, since man will fancy himsel...

Oh Lord! Thou kens what zeal I bear, When drinkers drink, and swearers swear, And singing there, and dancing here, Wi’ great and sma’; For I am keepit by thy fear, Free frae the...

In other things the knowing artist may Judge better than the people; but a play (Made for delight, and for no other use) If you approve it not, has no excuse.

At the corner of Byrom Street and Quay Street was the Manchester County Court, as I knew it, from 1887 to 1894, as a barrister and afterwards from that date to 1911 as judge. I...

Do I sleep? do I dream? Do I wonder and doubt? Are things what they seem? Or is visions about? Is our civilisation a failure? Or is the Caucasian played out?