land), occasions for a
great display in the county towns in which they were held. Whether the
judges had arrived on horseback or as later in their private carriages,
there was always the procession to the court-house, in which the
notabilities of the district took part. Lord Cockburn, who had no
sympathy with this part of a judge's duties, thus describes one of his
experiences in the early days of his Circuit journeys: "Yet there are
some of us who like the procession, though it can never be anything but
mean and ludicrous, and who fancy that a line of soldiers, or the more
civic array of paltry policemen, or of doited special constables,
protecting a couple of judges who flounder in awkward gowns and wigs
through ill-paved streets, followed by a few sneering advocates and
preceded by two or three sheriffs or their substitutes, with their
swords, which trip them, and a provost and some bailie-bodies trying to
look grand, the whole defended by a poor iron mace, and advancing each
with a different step, to the sound of two cracked trumpets, ill-blown
by a couple of drunken royal trumpeters, the spectators all laughing,
who fancy that all this pretence of greatness and reality of littleness
contributes to the dignity of judges." Things are changed now. Even Lord
Cockburn saw the change that the introduction of railways made in the
progress of Circuit work, and with them a lesser display and more
dignified opening of the courts of justice in local towns. But the older
Circuits were times of much feasting and merriment, in which the judges
of that period took their full share as well as the members of the Bar
accompanying them. In the eyes of some of these old worthies it was part
of the dignity of their position to sit down after Court work at two
o'clock in the morning to a collation of salmon and roast beef, and
drink bumpers of claret and mulled port with the provosts and other
local worthies, although they were due in Court that same morning at
nine to try some miserable creature for a serious crime. Lord Pitmilly
had no stomach for such proceedings, his inclination was stronger for
decorum and law than for revelling. Once at a Circuit town he ordered
his servant to bring to his room a kettle of hot water. Lord Hermand on
his way to dinner at midnight, meeting the servant, said, "God bless
me, is he going to make a whole kettle of punch--and before supper
too?"--"No, my lord, he's going to bed, but he wants to bathe his