The Reminiscences of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) Part 23

I knew my friend was chuckling as soon as we got into his family pew at the way in which he had lured me step by step, till we walked the last plank over the ditch, so I was not sorry to return good for evil and lend him my note.

He stared somewhat sideways at me when the bag pa.s.sed, but I bore it with fort.i.tude. I took particular notice that the crimson bag pa.s.sed along the front of our family pew at a very dilatory pace, and tarried a good deal, as if reluctant to leave it. To and fro it pa.s.sed in front of my nose as if it contained something I should like to smell, and at last moved away altogether. I was glad of that, because it prevented my following the words of the hymn in my book, and, unfortunately, it was one of those harvest hymns I did not know by heart.

On our way home over the meadows, where the gra.s.shoppers were practising for the next day's sports, and were in high glee over this harvest festival, Mr. Goodman seemed fidgety; whether conscience-stricken for the Sabbath fraud he had practised upon me or not, I could not say, but at last he asked how I liked their little service.

I said it was quite large enough.

"You"--he paused--"you did not, I think"--another pause--"contribute to our little gathering?"

"No," I said, "but it was not my fault; I lent you all I had. The fund, however, will not suffer in the least, and you have the satisfaction of having contributed the whole of our joint pocket-money. It does not matter who the giver is so long as the fund obtains it." I then diverted his mind with a story or two.

c.o.c.kburn, I said, was sitting next to Thesiger during a trial before Campbell, Chief Justice, in which the Judge read some French doc.u.ments, and, being a Scotsman, it attracted a good deal of attention. c.o.c.kburn, who was a good French scholar, was much annoyed at the Chief Justice's p.r.o.nunciation of the French language.

"He is murdering it," said he--"_murdering_ it!"

"No, my dear c.o.c.kburn," answered Thesiger, "he is not killing it, only Scotching it."

Sir Alexander was at a little shooting-party with Beth.e.l.l and his son, one of whom shot the gamekeeper. The father accused the son of the misadventure, while the son returned the compliment. c.o.c.kburn, after some little time, asked the gamekeeper what was the real truth of the unfortunate incident--who was the gentleman who had inflicted the injury?

The gamekeeper, still smarting from his wounds, and forgetting the respect due to the questioner, answered,--

"O Sir Alexander--d--n 'em, it was _both_!"

A remark made by Lord Young, the Scotch Judge, one of the wittiest men who ever adorned the Bar, and who is a Bencher of the Middle Temple, struck me as particularly happy. There was a conversation about the admission of solicitors to the roll, and the long time it took before they were eligible to pa.s.s from their stage of pupilage to that of solicitor, amounting, I think, to seven years; upon which Lord Young said, "_Nemo repente fuit turp.i.s.simus_."

CHAPTER XXV.

COMPENSATION--NICE CALCULATIONS IN OLD DAYS--EXPERTS--LLOYD AND I.

As my business continued to increase, it took me more and more from the ordinary _nisi prius_, and kept me perpetually employed in special matters. I had a great many compensation cases, where houses, lands, and businesses had been taken for public or company purposes. They were interesting and by no means difficult, the great difficulty being to get the true value when you had, as I have known, a hundred thousand pounds asked on one side and ten thousand offered on the other.

Railway companies were especially plundered in the exorbitant valuation of lands, and therefore an advocate who could check the valuers by cross-examination was sought after. Juries were always liable to be imposed upon, and generally gave liberal compensation, altogether apart from the market value. Experts, such as land agents and surveyors, were always in request, and indeed these experts in value caused the most extravagant amounts to be awarded. Even the mean sum between highest and lowest was a monstrously unfair guide, for one old expert used to instruct his pupils that the only true principle in estimating value was to ask at least twice as much as the business or other property was worth, because, he said, the other side will be sure to try and cut you down one-half, and then probably offer to split the difference. If you accept that, you will of course get one-quarter more than you could by stating what you really wanted. No one could deal with the real value, because there was no such thing known in the Compensation Court.

On one occasion I was travelling north in connection with one of these cases, retained, as usual, on behalf of a railway company. In my judgment the claim would have been handsomely met by an award of 10,000, and that sum we were prepared to give.

On my way I observed in my carriage a gentleman who was very busy in making calculations on slips of paper, and every now and again mentioning the figures at which he had arrived--repeating them to himself. When we got to a station he threw away his paper, after tearing it up, and when we started commenced again, but at every stoppage on our journey he increased his amount. After we had travelled 250 miles, the property he was valuing had attained the handsome figure of 100,000.

He evidently had not observed me. I was very quiet, and well wrapped up. The next day, when he stepped into the witness-box he had not the least idea that I had been his fellow-traveller of the previous night. He was not very sharp except in the matter of figures; but his opinion, like that of all experts, was invincible. His name was Bunce.

"When did you view this property, Mr. Bunce? I understand you come from London."

"I saw it this morning, sir."

"Did you make any calculation as to its value _before_ you saw it?"

This puzzled him, and he stared at me. It was a hard stare, but I held out.

He said, "No."

"Not when you were travelling? Did it not pa.s.s through your mind when you were in the train, for instance--'I wonder, now, what that property is worth?'"

"I dare say it did, sir."

"But don't _dare say_ anything unless it's true."

"I did, then, run it over in my mind."

"And I dare say you made notes and can produce them. Did you make notes?" After a while I said, "I see you did. You may as well let me have them."

"I tore them up."

"Why? What became of the pieces?"

"I threw them away."

"Do you remember what price you had arrived at when you reached Peterborough, for instance?"

The expert thought I was some one whom we never mention except when in a bad temper, and he was more and more puzzled when he found that at every stoppage I knew how much his price had increased.

As the case was tried by an arbitrator and not a jury, my task was easy, arbitrators not being so likely to be befooled as the other form of tribunal. This arbitrator, especially, knew the elasticity of an expert's opinion, and therefore I was not alarmed for my client. The amount was soon arrived at by reducing the sum claimed by no less than 90,000. Thus vanished the visionary claim and the expert. He evidently had not been trained by the cunning old surveyor whose experience taught him to be moderate, and ask only twice as much as you ought to get.

In another claim, which was no less than 10,000, the jury gave 300.

This was a state of things that had to be stopped, and it could only be accomplished at that time by counsel who appeared on behalf of the companies.

Sir Henry Hunt was one of the best of arbitrators, and it was difficult to deceive him. It took a clever expert to convince him that a piece of land whose actual value would be 100 was worth 20,000.

Sir Henry once paid me a compliment--of course, I was not present.

"Hawkins," said he, "is the very best advocate of the day, and, strange to say, his initials are the same as mine. You may turn them upside down and they will still stand on their legs" (H.H.).

Sir Henry was sometimes a witness, and as such always dangerous to the side against whom he was called, because he was a judge of value and a man of honour.

One instance in which I took a somewhat novel course in demolis.h.i.+ng a fict.i.tious claim is, perhaps, worth while to relate, although so many years have pa.s.sed since it occurred.

It was so far back as the time of the old Hungerford Market, which the railway company was taking for their present Charing Cross terminus.

The question was as to the value of a business for the sale of medical appliances.

Mr. Lloyd, as usual, was for the business, while I appeared for the company. My excellent friend proceeded on the good old lines of compensation advocacy with the same comfortable routine that one plays the old family rubber of threepenny points. I occasionally finessed, however, and put my opponent off his play. He held good hands, but if I had an occasionally bad one, I sometimes managed to save the odd trick.

Lloyd had expatiated on the value of the situation, the highroad between Waterloo Station and the Strand, immense traffic and grand frontage. To prove all this he called a mult.i.tude of witnesses, who kissed the same book and swore the same thing almost in the same words. But to his great surprise I did not cross-examine. Lloyd was bewildered, and said I had admitted the value by not cross-examining, and he should not call any more witnesses.

I then addressed the jury, and said, "A mult.i.tude of witnesses may prove anything they like, but my friend has started with an entirely erroneous view of the situation. The compensation for disturbance of a business must depend a great deal on the nature of the business. If you can carry it on elsewhere with the same facility and profit, the compensation you are ent.i.tled to is very little. I will ill.u.s.trate my meaning. Let us suppose that in this thoroughfare there is a good public-house--for such a business it would indeed be an excellent situation; you may easily imagine a couple of burly farmers coming up from Farnham or Windlesham to the Cattle Show, and walking over the bridge, hot and thirsty. 'Hallo!' says one; 'I say, Jim, here's a nice public; what d'ye say to goin' in and havin' a gla.s.s o' bitter? It's a goodish pull over this 'ere bridge."

"'With all my heart,' says Jim; and in they go.