tJilk: stockings lay under the Serap Iron A'l't. The draughtsman after s-0me months .gave some sort of an answer but H was almost as unsatisfactory as the Justice's own solution to the problem of how to tell a girl's :age. The latter . arose from one of his rules that no girl under seventeen was to be admitted to a dance llall in his Area. W·hen a reporter !asked how was any dapce hall proprietor to know ,a gi.rl's age the Justice was stumped and fell back upon the fair-day expedient of regarding teeth as a reliable bh•th 'Certificate. WHEN <giving; judgment in •a -0ase he always was careful to explain to those litigants who were their own attorneys that an ia;ppeal lay against his decision, 1and •proceeded : "Only -0ne man in this world's infallible, and even he is infallible only on ·cetain occasions. Now in thL; case I am either right or wrong. If I am right that's an end t-0 it, but if I am wrong you can get my vedict rever.s.ed. Tactful!y, he ignored discussing the possibility that the AppeUate Court might also be wrong an,! that the -0nly effect of an appeal might be to confirm an error. In all the duties of his high station he sought to act as the friend and guardian of those in dist.ress and who had none to plead their cause or commiserate their follies. In his robes, seated on the Bench, he was The L"aw but surely it was difficult to associate vengeful forms and dread penalties .with the kindly figure who mildly interposed now and then to hazard an explanation in favour of the de427, fendant, or who qui;1:zica1ly remincled the Court audience that >.all men have their faults. It is thus he will be remembered. JUSTICE 'Valsh was at work on his Autobiography when death came to halt the busy hand. He had not got tar with the work. A few months before his death a caller at his home in Letterkennv noticP.rl (with the hands of the clock pointing to within a few minutes of midnight) that the typewriter was in action and ,a chapter "The Moy Fair" being wr.itten. That c·hapter never was completed. Only the next· day the Justice became more gravely ill and left his desk never to return. Recently, 1a copy of the first ten chapters of his Autobi- -0gf!aphy showed how engrossing 1a story the Justice intended to make -t his own life. He had intended to wr:ite of his ·own times much as Macaulay thought history should be written-with 'all the colour and detail th!at alone can give the past a meaning and bring .it 1alive for the reader. Yet, brief though they be, the ten <ebapters of the contemplated work bring alive again memory d the pale, square face, wit!. the broad brow crowning the 51enetr•ating eyes and the wisp oi hair that never w-0uld s,tay in place but -0ften fell almost to the spectacles. We hear in fancy the well-remembered voice land see the plump hand griasp firmly that pen which ·is in real truth "the machinery of the Law" - and across the film of memory pictures flit so rapidly that we lose trace of !all we wish 10 remember.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzQxNzU3