The man put out his hand to save himself from stumbling or to remonstrate and the policeman knocked him flat in the gutter and then took him to the police station and charged him with assaulting the police. I had no doubt that my man's story was true, I had six witnesses to his version of it as against a policeman's unsupported evidence. I pointed out to the magistrate in a very strong speech that unless he was prepared to disbelieve the whole of my six witnesses he could not convict, and that to put it at its very lowest there was so much doubt in the case that the prisoner was entitled to the benefit of it. He listened silently in complete indifference and at the end merely opened his mouth to say "Three months." I was so indignant that I gave notice of appeal, but as my man was ordered to find two sureties in £50, which, of course, he could not do, he had to suffer this unjust conviction and unjust sentence, merely because he was poor.

I had one case of considerable interest in which I sat as sole arbitrator in a dispute about an engineering contract. The proceedings were conducted by Counsel on both sides and lasted 12 days and the testimony was very conflicting. When I had ultimately to make up my mind I discovered how very difficult and painful it is to come to a conclusion on a question of fact, and to have to decide that a witness is lying. I had no real doubt about my decision, but none the less one suffers from an uneasy feeling that one may have done an injustice.

I joined the Old Bailey mess, but my only experience there was in connexion with one of Timewell's cases when we prosecuted a policeman for perjury but failed to get a conviction. After this, the Treasury prosecuted our man for perjury and got him convicted, but my belief still is that our man was speaking the truth. However, the evidence was so contradictory that I do not think it justified a conviction on either side.

I also became a member of the South Eastern Circuit and joined the Quarter Sessions of Cambridge, Wisbech and Ely. I found my work most interesting and thoroughly enjoyed both discussions as to points of law and conflicts as to facts. I can also endorse everything that is said of the camaraderie and good fellowship of the Bar. I received nothing but kindness and consideration everywhere and even a judge whom I did not know was good enough to write me a little note congratulating me on my conduct of the case before him and wishing me success. As he had found against me, there was no difficulty about it. I had, however, by now got so involved in commercial

work and Company business that my time was no longer mine, and as the Bar is a jealous mistress and tolerates no divided allegiance, I found it necessary to withdraw from active practice.

Although not concerned with my own practice, two cases in which I was a principal may appropriately be related here. The first was the case of Morland the Oxford blackmailer in 1895. About 1888 I had received some letters written in a fine Italian hand from a person signing herself Ruth Morland, professing to be a widow and suggesting an assignation. I replied to these letters, but no appointment was ever made and no meeting ever took place. In 1890, on the announcement of my marriage an attempt was made to blackmail me into paying £50 for these letters, but of course I told Mabel Edith all about it and laughed at the threat. With incredible effrontery this person then issued a writ against me and served it on me at Eaton Square claiming £100, of which £50 was said to be for money lent and £50 for the return of the letters. The first writ was informal but a second was served and proceedings were carried up to the point of trial when, as we anticipated, they collapsed and the action was discontinued. I thought no more about it until some years later I saw an exposure in Truth of an attempt to blackmail Lord Hothfield with precisely similar letters. It was there stated that these letters were not the work of a woman at all but of a man called Morland who had been practising the same kind of thing for many years on nearly the whole of the peerage. I at once placed myself in communication with Truth and said that I was quite willing to assist in the prosecution and to give evidence. I appeared at Bow Street and Morland was committed on three charges. In due course I appeared at the Old Bailey when Morland was arraigned on the indictment relating to Lord Hothfield. For some reason he refused to plead guilty to this, but his answer was: "I plead guilty to all the Earl Russell case." This plea was accepted, and although he was 65 years old, he was sentenced to 10 years penal servitude. He was a most respectable looking old man, and therefore no doubt the more dangerous.

The other matter was very trifling, but it illustrates how one may be let in quite innocently. On one occasion I was dressing to go to a levée, and as this costume does not admit of much in the way of pockets, I had left three sovereigns in money on my dressing-table. When I had gone, a window-cleaner came to the house and was admitted by the butler, who, however, took the precaution of concealing the three sovereigns under the toilet cover. He took an

occasion to look again and found the three sovereigns had disappeared. He then discovered that the window-cleaner had bolted leaving his ladder behind him. Communication with our regular window-cleaners proved that they had not sent him, and of course I informed the police. Six months later, in August, when I was in the country, the police arrested a man and invited my butler to identify him which he did unhesitatingly. I was sent for and came up from the country and gave evidence at Bow Street of the loss but of course was not in a position to say anything about the man. The prisoner was remanded for a week, and imagining it to be a police prosecution I took no further notice of it and took no steps to support the case. On the remand, the man produced apparently unimpeachable evidence of an alibi, and this not being challenged by the police, the magistrate dismissed the case. Then to my astonishment the windowcleaner proceeded to sue me for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution, and I learned for the first time that my butler had been made to sign the charge sheet by the police and that I was technically the prosecutor. His action was tried in the County Court before a jury who found in my favour and he then appealed to the Divisional Court where we also won. Even this was not the end of my troubles, for a week or two later I was denounced in John Bull as a persecutor of the poor, though I must admit that when the facts were explained to them they published an apology. So here I found myself quite unwittingly let in for a great deal of annoyance and about £60 in costs over a matter in which I had no personal responsibility of any kind.

I was the victim of an extraordinary prosecution by the London County Council. They sent me by registered post a Local Taxation Licence form to fill up requiring me to answer the question what Local Taxation Licences there were in which I was liable for payment. As in accordance with my usual practice I had taken out and paid for all the licences for which I was liable in the month of January, there was only one possible answer to this question, and that was "None." Thereupon they prosecuted me before the Magistrate at Bow Street for making a false return. He was as incapable as I had been of seeing in what particular the return was false and what other return I could possibly have made that would have been truthful, and he dismissed the summons without any hesitation. Being a Revenue prosecution the Crown was able to appeal against this dismissal and took me to Quarter Sessions. Here the Deputy Chairman who was certainly not a lawyer succeeded by some extraordinary mental twist in thinking I ought to be convicted, but was so doubtful of his law that

his sentence was that I should pay a fine of one shilling and no costs on condition that I did not appeal. I should very much have liked to have taken the opinion of the High Court upon the matter, but as to do so would have involved my paying about £200 in costs I most reluctantly put up with paying the shilling. I have never to this day succeeded in understanding how the only possible truthful answer to a question could constitute a false return. The whole affair is characteristic of the preposterous and irritating tactics adopted by the London County Council whenever they are given power against the public, and the only result has been that ever since the County of London has lost a revenue of from £20 to £40 a year from my licences because I have taken them out elsewhere. They must also have wasted about £150 in costs.

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CHAPTER XXXII

A CITY GENT

Y first experience of business was in the firm of Swinburne and Co. which I have already mentioned. The partnership consisted of James Swinburne, our senior partner, who is now well known as a leading expert and consultant on electrical matters, H. S. Holt, and myself. Swinburne had been employed with Crompton of Chelmsford, one of our electrical pioneers, and was now anxious to develop an invention of his called the "Hedgehog Transformer." Our first premises consisted of a little wooden shed which was erected on a portion of my kitchen-garden at Broom Hall.

We subsequently took some derelict premises near the railway station at Teddington, and here we did many interesting things with alternators, transformers and very high tension. On one occasion I got a shock which laid me out flat: I was quite surprised to find I was not dead. Swinburne acted as the draughtsman and technical director, Holt was Works Manager, and I had the humble but necessary position of taking care of the accounts and correspondence. For this purpose I had to teach myself book-keeping by double entry, a subject not included in the University curriculum.

Apart from the interest of the business itself there was a good deal of fun outside to be got from it, because throughout our life Swinburne was keeping up a running fight with other electrical experts and manufacturers on the merits or demerits of the Hedgehog Transformer. We said it was the only efficient transformer made and they said that it ate up just as much power at no load as at full load. We also took part in an electrical exhibition at the Crystal Palace where we gave three demonstrations daily of tame lightning in the shape of sparks three and four feet long and more, at a charge of 1s. a head. At Holt's suggestion the girl attendants on our stand were dressed in wonderful costumes of green and chocolate, the firm's colours. Nor was the office work itself entirely without occasional diversions. On one occasion a cheque had gone missing,