Out of Print
This entertaining book, written by a former devil of the late Sir Thomas Chitty when he was the leading junior of the common law Bar in the nineties (1890's) , gives a vivid picture of the Temple of those days, seen through the eye of one with an experience of the world unusual in Templars, for Judge Alexander has seen the Southern Seas and held the position of judge in the High Court of Tanganyika.
Throughout the pages of this book, which depicts the London life of a young barrister in all its phases, Chitty himself and the distinguished silks by whom he was led - Lawson Walton, Carson, Clarke, Asquith, Haldane and others - come to life.
Halsbury, Esher, A. L. Smith, Russell of Killowen, Lockwood, Samuel Pope, Webster, Finlay, Hawkins and Mathew - those giants of the past, now almost legendary figures - take substance again and the author gives by no means conventional estimates of Darling and Marshall Hall.
The author gives his early recollections of Hanworth, Eve, Rufus Isaacs, Avory, Scrutton and M'Cardie, and has many a good story to tell about Augustine Birrell, Danckwerts, the Murphys, Forbes Lankester and lesser dignitaries, while the book contains several of Theobald Mathew's inimitable sketches.
Preface... Throughout my association with the late Sir Thomas Willes Chitty, Bart., K.C., when he was the foremost junior at the Common Law Bar, I had a unique opportunity of coming into close contact with the leading figures of the legal world in the nineties. There were giants in the earth in those days.
To the present-day members of the Bar many of these eminent men are now not even names. In these pages I have tried to describe some of them as appeared to me. It has also been my aim to picture the life of the ordinary young barrister of that time. I describe him in the Temple and in the Law Courts, as well as in his hours of ease outside.
I am indebted to my friend Mr. Theobald Mathew for the sketches which illustrate this book. GILCHRIST ALEXANDER.
Fountain Court,
Temple, February 1938
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