Hawkins."

Not long after he had ascended the Bench Mr. Justice Hawkins was hearing
a case in which a man was being tried for murder. The counsel for the
prosecution observed the prisoner say something earnestly to the
policeman seated by his side in the dock, and asked that the constable
should be made to disclose what had passed. "Yes," said his lordship, "I
think you may demand that. Constable, inform the Court what passed
between you and the prisoner."--"I--I would rather not, your lordship. I
was--."--"Never mind what you would rather not do. Inform the Court what
the prisoner said."--"He asked me, your lordship, who that hoary heathen
with the sheepskin was, as he had often seen him at the
race-course."--"That will do," said his lordship. "Proceed with the
case."

An action for damages against a fire insurance company, brought by some
Jews, was heard before Chief Justice Cockburn, which clearly was a
fraudulent claim. The plaintiffs claimed for loss of ready-made clothes
in the fire. Hawkins, who appeared for the defendant company, elicited
the fact that ready-made clothes in this firm had all brass buttons as a
rule; and, further, that after sifting the debris of the fire no buttons
had been found. The trial was not concluded on that day, but on the
following morning hundreds of buttons partially burnt were brought into
Court by the Jew plaintiffs. Cockburn was not long in appreciating this
mode of furnishing evidence after its necessity had been pointed out,
and he asked: "How do you account for these buttons, Mr. Hawkins? You
said none were found."--"Up to last night none had been found," replied
Hawkins. "But," said the Chief Justice--"but these buttons have
evidently been burnt in the fire. How do they come here?"--"_On their
own shanks_," was Hawkins' smart and ready reply. Verdict for
defendants.

The alibi has come in for its fair share of jests. Sir Henry Hawkins
relates in his _Reminiscences_ how he once found the following in his
brief: "If the case is called on before 3.15, the defence is left to the
ingenuity of the counsel; if after that hour, the defence is an alibi,
as by then the usual alibi witnesses will have returned from Norwich,
where they are at present professionally engaged."

Sitting as a vacation judge, Sir Walter Phillimore, whose views on the
law of divorce are well known, protested against being called on to make
absolute a number of decrees _nisi_ granted in the Divorce Division