marks, 'that to hear in their
happiest moments the summing up of such judges as Lord Campbell, Lord
Chief Justice Erle, or Baron Parke, was like listening not only (to use
Hobbes's famous expression) to law living and armed, but to justice
itself.'[189] He tried successfully to follow in their steps.

Justice implies fair play to the accused. I have already noticed how
strongly he insists upon this in his writings. They show how deeply he
had been impressed in his early years at the bar by the piteous
spectacle of poor ignorant wretches, bewildered by an unfamiliar scene,
unable to collect their thoughts, or understand the nature of the
proceedings, and sometimes prevented by the very rules intended for
their protection from bringing out what might be a real defence. Many
stories have been told me of the extreme care with which he would try to
elicit the meaning of some muddled remonstrance from a bewildered
prisoner, and sometimes go very near to the verge of what is permitted
to a judge by giving hints which virtually amounted to questions, and so
helping prisoners to show that they were innocent or had circumstances
to allege in mitigation. He always spoke to them in a friendly tone, so
as to give them the necessary confidence. A low bully, for example, was
accused of combining with two women to rob a man. A conviction seemed
certain till the prisoners were asked for their defence; when one of
them made a confused and rambling statement. Fitzjames divined the
meaning, and after talking to them for twenty minutes, during which he
would not directly ask questions, succeeded in making it clear that the
prosecutor was lying, and obtained an acquittal. One other incident out
of many will be enough. A man accused of stabbing a policeman to avoid
arrest, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to seven years' penal
servitude. On being removed by the warders he clung to the rail,
screaming, 'You can't do it.

You don't know what you are doing!' Fitzjames shouted to the warders to
put him back; discovered by patient hearing that the man was meaning to
refer to some circumstance in extenuation, and after calling the
witnesses found that the statement was confirmed. 'Now, you silly
fellow,' he said, 'if you had pleaded "not guilty," as I told you, all
this would have come out. It is true that I did not know what I was
doing, but it was your own fault.' He then reduced the sentence to nine
months, saying, 'Does that satisfy you?' 'Tha