Baron Henry Hawkins Brampton

“ To our surprise, and no little to our delight, there was to be an important meeting of the "Fancy" to witness a great prize-fight between Jack Brassy and Ben Caunt.
Ben Caunt was the greatest prize-fighter, both in stature and bulk, as well as in strength, I ever saw. He looked what he was—then or soon after—the champion of the world.
Brassy, too, was well made, and seemed every whit the man to meet Caunt. The two, indeed, were equally well made in form and shape, and as smooth cut as marble statues when they stripped for action. ”

“ A keen sportsman he was, and a shrewd, common-sense lawyer—so great a lover of the Turf that it is told of him, and I know it to be true, that once in court a man was pointed out to him bowing with great reverence, and repeating it over and over again until he caught the Baron's attention. The Judge, with one pair of spectacles on his forehead and another on his eyes, immediately cried aloud to his marshal, "Custance, the jockey, as I'm alive!" and then the Baron bowed most politely to the man in the crowd, the most famous jockey of his day. ”

“ I, who through my whole life had been studying evidence and the mode in which it was delivered, believed in the man's guilt, and felt that no cross-examination, however subtle and skilfully conducted, could shake it.
I felt for the man—a scholar, a scientist—as one must feel for the victim of so great a temptation. But I felt also that he was entitled, on account of all those things which aroused my sympathy, to the severest sentence, which I had already considered it would be my duty to award him. ”

“ Even javelin-men fell asleep with their spears in their hands; the marshal dozed in his chair, ushers leaned against the pillars which supported the gallery, while witnesses rubbed their eyes and yawned as they gave their evidence.
A case of trifling importance was proceeding with as steady a pace as though an empire's fate, instead of a butcher's honour, were involved. One butcher had slandered another butcher.
The art of advocacy was being exercised between an Irishman and a Scotchman, which made the English language quite a hotch-potch of equivocal words and a babel of sounds. ”

“ No harm will be done to you. I am sure you did not know in your great trouble and sorrow what you were doing, and I will take care to represent your case so that nothing will harm you in the way of punishment."
I then mumbled over the words of the sentence of death, taking care that the poor woman did not hear them—much, no doubt, to the chagrin of the High Sheriff and to the lowering of his high office and dignity. Nothing so enhances a Sheriff's dignity as the gallows. ”

“ I speak not to stall-fed juniors who have not to wait till their merits are discovered, and who know that whosoever may watch and wait and hope or despair, they shall have enough. All blessings go with them; I never envied them their heritage. They are born to briefs as the sparks fly upwards. I tell my experience to those who will understand and appreciate every word I say—to men who have to make their way in the world by their own exertions, and live on their own labour or die of disappointment. ”

“ If it is capable of a wrong inference, a Judge should be absolutely positive in his direction to the jury not to draw it.
I have witnessed many great trials for murder, but do not remember one where there was an eye-witness to the deed. How is it possible, then, to bring home the charge to the culprit unless you rely on circumstantial evidence? Circumstantial evidence is the evidence of circumstances—facts that speak for themselves and that cannot be contradicted. Circumstances have no motive to deceive, while human testimony is too often the product of every kind of motive. ”

“ We have sat under him on many eventful occasions, and venture the opinion that no one who has had equal opportunity would come to any other conclusion than that he was painstaking and careful to a degree, and particularly in criminal cases formed one of the most conscientious Judges on the Bench. Hanging Judge! Why, we have seen the tears start to his eyes when sentencing a prisoner to death, and, owing to emotion, only by a masterful effort could his voice be heard. Above all, he is a just Judge. ”

“ I was tired of the negotiations, and yielded; so away went poor Dreadnought with his saddle and bridle, never for me to look on again. I was sorry to part with him, and the more so because his life had been unfortunate. But I was deceived in him as well as in his new master. From me he had concealed his merits, only to reveal them, as is often the case with latent genius, when some accidental opportunity offered.
At that time Bromley in Kent was a central attraction for a great many second-class patrons of the sporting world. ”

“ Down into the jaws of the cavern below the dock descended the jailer of six feet two—the only big thing about the place. He was a resolute-looking man in full uniform, and I can almost feel the breathless silence that pervaded the court during his absence.
Time passed and no one appeared. When a sufficient interval had elapsed for the stalwart jailer to have eaten his prisoner, had he been so minded, the Recorder, looking up from behind the Times, which he appeared to be reading, asked in a very stern voice why the prisoner was not "put up." ”

“ I amused myself by watching the proceedings of the betting-ring, where there is a good deal more honesty than in many places dignified by the name of "marts."
But if there was no innocence on the turf, rogues could not live; they are not cannibals—not, at all events, while they can obtain tenderer food. And are there not commercial circles also which could not exist without their equally innocent supporters?
Experience may be a dear school, but its lessons are never forgotten. A very little should go a long way, and the wisest make it go farthest. ”

“ Speaking, however, of racing men, I have always thought that the passion for gambling is one of the strongest propensities of our nature, and once the mind is given to it there is no restraint possible, either from law or pulpit. Its fascination never slackens, and time never blunts the keen desire of self-gratification which it engenders, while the grip with which it fastens upon us is as fast in old age as in youth. It will absorb all other pleasures and pastimes. ”

“ Many persons were not aware, and thousands are not at the present time, that when a verdict of "Wilful murder" is pronounced a Judge has no alternative but to read the prescribed sentence of death. If this were not so, the situation would be almost intolerable, for who would not avoid, if possible, deciding that the irrevocable doom of the prisoner should be delivered? In many cases the feelings of the Judges would interfere with the course of justice, and murderers would receive more sympathy than their victims, while fiends would escape to the danger of society. ”

“ Nor was it uncommon to meet what was called the cream of society at the celebrated rendezvous of Ben Caunt, which was the Coach and Horses, St. Martin's Lane, or at the less pretentious resort of the Tipton Slasher; and what will our modern ladies think of their fair predecessors, who in those days witnessed the drawing of a badger or a dog-fight on a Sunday afternoon?
All mankind will attend exhibitions of skill and prowess, and although prize-fights are illegal, you never can suppress the spirit which engendered that form of competition. ”

“ CHAPTER XLIV. THE LAST OF LORD CAMPBELL—WINE AND WATER—SIR THOMAS WILDE. Life, alas! must have its sad stories as well as its mirthful. I have told few of the former, not because they have not been present to my mind, but because I think it useless to perpetuate them by narration. But for its occasional gleams of humour, life would indeed be dull, and ever eclipsed by the shadow of sorrow. ”

“ I may say I liked Sam Lewis, and having told the story of the Queen's Counsel who borrowed my money in so dishonest a manner, I will tell one of Sam, the professional money-lender.
He never was known to take advantage of a man in difficulties, and he never did, nor to charge any one exorbitant interest. I have known him lend to men and allow them to fix their own time of payment, their own rate of interest, and their own security. He often lent without any at all. He knew his men, and was not fool enough to trust a rogue at any amount of interest. ”

“ Nobody who has carefully noted the innumerable phases of crime which our criminal courts have continually to deal with, and the infinite shades of guilt attached to each of those crimes, will fail to come to the conclusion that one might as well attempt to allocate to its fitting place each grain of sand, exposed to the currents of a desert and all other disturbing influences, as endeavour by any scheme or fixed rule to determine what is the fitting sentence to be endured for every crime which a person can be proved, under any circumstances, to have committed. ”

“ There is one consolation even for the wretched waiters on solicitors' favours, and that is, that the men who have never had to work their way seldom rise to eminence or to any position but respectable mediocrity. They never knew hope, and will never know what it is to despair, or to nibble the short herbage of the common where poorer creatures browse.
A father never looked on his firstborn with more pleasure than a barrister on his first brief. ”

“ The jury were solemnly asked to remember that if one jot or tittle of evidence had been put forward, or a single document put in by him, the prisoner's counsel, he would lose the last word on behalf of the prisoner! Of course, counsel's last word may be of more value than some evidence; but the smallest "jot or tittle" of evidence, or any document whatever that even tends to prove the innocence of the accused, is of more value than a thousand last words of the most powerful speaker I have ever listened to. ”

“ My clerk's worry then came home to me; not about a single brief, but about a great many. Illness would be a very serious matter, as I had arrived at an important stage in my career. A barrister in full practice cannot afford to be ill. In my distress I sent to Baron Martin, as I was in every case in his list for the following day, and begged him to oblige me by adjourning his court. It was a large request, but I knew his kindness, and felt I might ask the favour. Baron Martin, I should think, never in his life did an unkind act or refused to do a kind one. ”