* * * * *

Of Lord Chief Justice Tenterden, Lord Campbell asserts that he once, and
only once, uttered a pun. A learned gentleman, who had lectured on the
law and was too much addicted to oratory came to argue a special
demurrer before him. "My client's opponent," said the figurative
advocate, "worked like a mole under ground, _clam et secrete_." His
figures only elicited a grunt from the Chief Justice. "It is asserted in
Aristotle's _Rhetoric_--."--"I don't want to hear what is asserted in
Aristotle's _Rhetoric_," interposed Lord Tenterden. The advocate shifted
his ground and took up, as he thought, a safe position. "It is laid down
in the _Pandects_ of Justinian--." "Where are you got now?" "It is a
principle of the civil law--." "Oh sir," exclaimed the judge, with a
tone and voice which abundantly justified his assertion, "we have
nothing to do with the _civil_ law in this Court."

* * * * *

Judges sometimes stray into humour without intending it. At an election
petition trial one allegation was, that a number of rosettes, or "marks
of distinction," had been kept in a table drawer in the central
committee-room. To meet this charge it was thought desirable to call
witnesses to swear that the only table in the room consisted of planks
laid on trestles. "So that the table had no proper legs," said counsel
cheerfully. "Never mind whether it had proper legs," said one of the
learned judges. "The more important question is: Had it drawers?"

And in _The Story of Crime_ the author recalls an instance of a judge
unconsciously furnishing material for laughter in Court. "At the
beginning of the session at the Old Baily a good deal of work is got
through by the judge who takes the small cases, and it may be this fact
that accounted for the confusion of thought which he describes. One of
the prisoners was charged with stealing a camera, and after all the
evidence had been taken his lordship proceeded to sum up to the jury. He
began by correctly describing the stolen article as a camera, but had
not gone very far before the camera had become a concertina, and by the
time he had finished the concertina had become an accordion. And he
never once saw his mistake. The usher noticed it at the first trip, and
kept repeating in a kind of hoarse stage-whisper, 'Camera! Camera!' but
his voice did not reach the Bench, and so the complicated article
remained on record."

Mr. An