The Court Bible

WHEN the Judge brought in the new Bible wrapped in his morning paper, I begged for possession of the old one. The Judge looked at me narrowly, as he looked on the day when I hunted the passage from Isaiah for the defendant’s counsel in the larceny case, and remarked that I was quite welcome.

And now the venerable book lies before me, cum privilegio, its soiled and tattered dignity illuminated by the softening light of reminiscence, a fat little book, born at Blackfriars, its leather coat shining like a smith’s apron, its “full gilt ” dulled to a mellow bronze. I estimated that it had been kissed fifty thousand times.

For ten years I had watched them salute it, —petitioners and paupers, criminals, children propped to the bar, bent old men, women who winced and interposed their gloved fingers, clergymen who raised it solemnly, gamblers who grinned and shifted their tobacco to the other side, Polish peddlers who made a revolting noise.

In the first place it had seemed by precedent to be kissed on the flat of the cover. I fancy this was the form in the days when, as in the phrase of Scott’s jailer, they “smacked calf-skin ” at the old Scottish courts, and were bidden “ the truth to tell, and no truth to conceal ... in the name of God, and as the witness should answer to God on the great day of judgment, ” — “ an awful adjuration, ” says the chronicler of Effie Deans’ trial, “which seldom fails to make impression even on the most hardened characters, and to strike with fear even the most upright. ” In those days the witness was called upon to repeat the words of the oath, a form which must greatly have increased its solemnity, and have deepened the difficulty of maintaining those mental reservations more readily associated with an often flippant nod of the head and a perfunctory touch.

Doubtless it was some sense, æsthetic or sanitary, of the accretions of time which led the court officers who controlled the fortunes of my Bible to form a practice of holding to the witnesses’ lips the gilded edge of the volume, and in the latter days of its service the officer, if the witness were a woman, and particularly if she were a pretty woman, would invidiously open the book and offer her the relatively unfrequented space of a random page.

It had been kissed by juries, the men first standing in a circle with hands outstretched toward it, the officer then thrusting it, sometimes with grotesque ineptness, into one face after the other. Frequently it had been lost for definite minutes, until the cry went up in the court, “Where’s the Bible? ” On more than one such occasion the Judge indulged in an old jest. “The stenographer ’s very fond of it. Search him.” This was because it once had been found under my elbow after a prosy opening argument by counsel.

The spectacle of my absorption in the book during a summing up sometimes seemed to amuse the Judge, who reserved the right to read a newspaper throughout a pathetic passage by the lawyer for the defense. At one time he appeared to feel that I was covertly preparing for the ministry, and that my voluminous notes not demanded by the procedure of the court were designed to further the ends of some fanatical reform.

I was testimony clerk during the incumbency of this Bible, and sat upon the right hand of the judicial chair in a bare justice’s court, on the side near the witness stand, the Bible on the ledge before me. The Bible was the beginning of everything. The complainant, police officer or civilian, saluted it after signing the complaint. The special interpreter, Slav, Hindoo, or Chinese, impartially took oath upon it before, in turn, swearing the witness. In case the witness was a Hebrew it frequently happened that the book was opened so that he might place his hand upon the Old Testament section, and he was permitted, and sometimes directed, to wear his hat.

During the ten years of my observation the practice of affirming with uplifted hand, in preference to the older form of oath, steadily grew. The choice to affirm generally was accepted without comment, though I can remember that at a not remotely earlier day the affirmant usually underwent interrogation as to his reasons for eschewing the oath, his attitude toward the Bible, his belief in a supreme being, and his sense of obligation as related to the affirmation. These forms are supposed to be duly regulated by statute, but in fact they vary, and vastly, within statutory areas.

The entrance of a child complainant or witness often introduced a curious scene. Eliciting facts from the mouths of babes is a dubious business in any circumstances. In the shabby witness box of a justice’s court it is often painful enough, not least so, perhaps, when it is superficially amusing. My notes show many strange answers from the bewildered youngsters called to exploit psychology before a heterogeneous audience.

I can see the Judge leaning forward and asking in his most reassuring tone, “ Now, little boy, do you know what it is to swear ? ”

The Boy. “I know that I must n’t swear. ”

The Judge. “I mean to swear on the Bible.”

The Boy. “I know that it’s very wrong.”

The Judge. “No, it is n’t wrong to swear on the Bible. But let me ask you, do you know what will become of you if you tell a lie ? ”

The Boy. “I will die.”

The Judge. “And what else? ”

The Boy. “Go to hell.”

It was at this juncture that the lawyer who offered the child as a witness was likely to interpose by saying, “I submit, your Honor, that the witness is entirely competent,” and perhaps some feeling that the fear of hell is the beginning of wisdom would influence the acceptance of the child’s testimony, the court shamefacedly watching the innocent lips pucker over the book. Indeed, the familiar procedure seemed to go upon the assumption that nothing else was to be done.

On another occasion: —

The Judge. “What will happen to you if you swear to tell the truth and then tell a lie ? ”

The Boy. “I will be punished.”

The Judge. “By whom? ”

The Boy. “By the Judge.”

The Judge. “Anybody else? ”

The Boy. “The policeman.”

The Judge. “Who else? ”

The Boy. “The jail man,”

The Judge (gravely). “ Will no one else punish you ? ”

The Boy (brightening). “Oh yes, my mother.”

Not infrequently the young witness would reply with great promptness, giving sign of precautionary instruction, as for example: —

The Judge. “What will become of you if you tell what is n’t true? ”

The Boy. “God won’t like me and I will go to the bad place.”

That the solemnity of the oath to tell the truth and nothing but the truth remained well forward in the mind of the witness was often indicated in the phraseology of the testimony. An indignant witness, questioned too pointedly as to his sincerity, cries out, “What did I kiss the book for? ”

“You swear that? ” demands the lawyer of an irritatingly specific witness.

“Yes, sir, on a thousand Bibles! ”

It was a commonplace of the minor trials, in the midst of a witness’s recital, to hear a saddened voice from the benches : “ And you just after kissin’ the book of God! ” Nothing could have been more dramatic than the interruption of an aged defendant, a lank Irishwoman, who leveled a bony finger at the witness and declared in a deep anguished tone, “God is listenin’ to your discoorse! ” And the interruptions having been many, the Judge added, “So am I, madam. Sit down.”

It was a trick of spectacular witnesses to use the Bible as a means of completing an illustration as to how certain objects were disposed, and when it was availably near, a witness was likely to pick up the book to indicate the manner in which some missile had been thrown. Of the average witness it may be said that his habit toward the little black volume was quickly and continuously reverential. Many reached for it as a means of emphasizing their integrity by ostentatiously holding it in their hands.

I recall the figure of a white-haired man who stood straight and solemn, with his hand upon the book. “I want to say,” he began, “to the Judge and you gentlemen around here ” —

“Oh, never mind us gentlemen,” interrupted the opposing counsel, “say it to the Judge,”

It is, of course, the business of the opposing counsel to belittle the witness in his greatest moment, but nothing of this sort has ever seemed to me more brutal than an incident in “dispossess proceedings,” when a little, old-fashioned, white-faced woman, stretching forth her hand, said with gentle fervor, “Judge, this good book tells us ” — and the landlord’s attorney, breaking in with a rasping voice, snarled, “Madam, we have n’t asked you to interpret the Scriptures. Do you owe this rent or not? ” The woman turned her blanched face to the lawyer, and, without another word or movement, gave a strangely pathetic sob, which brought a moment so intense that the Judge, his eyes moistening, lowered the gavel with a bang, and ordered the crowd in the back to be quiet, though there was not a sound there.

On another morning an old man, under stress of a harsh cross-examination, caught up the book and with incredible quickness opened it at Proverbs. “ You find fault! ” he cried, extending a shaking finger to the text. “ Read that! ” And the lawyer, fascinated by the unexpectedness of the attack, actually read aloud, “Answer a fool according to his folly.”

The book, lying here aloof from the harsh turmoil of its one-time surroundings, evokes scene after scene of this kind. I see it under the hands of trembling women who totter in the crisis of the vulgar publicity. I see it grasped by eager and pugnacious veterans in discord who pant for the excitements of the trial. I see it in the hand of the Judge, himself administering the oath to a witness from whom, in a great perplexity, he asks the very essence of truth. I see it suspended while the accused, at the brink of a trial, debates with his counsel a plea of guilty. I see it hurriedly restored to its accustomed place when the accused, about to take the oath, has fallen in a heap, and there is a call for water and the doctor.

One March day a fragile girl bearing an infant in her arms stepped to the stand, keeping her eyes away from a pale young man who sat in the prisoner’s chair. He was a mere boy. His mother and a lawyer sat on either side of him. His look was half dogged, half frightened, and he never took his eyes away from the face of the girl. The little mother at the bar had just kissed the book, and was adjusting herself in the witness chair, when she gave a startled scream which no one who heard it is likely ever to forget.

The baby was quite dead. My recollection gives me a confused picture in which I see the pale-faced young man pulling aside the wrappings of the baby; and I hear the later formula of the Judge, in which there was “charge upon the county” and “case dismissed.”

I remember another day when a fragile old man was arraigned upon a charge of theft in a business house. The charge was a mistake, and this soon appeared. Throughout the hearing the man himself had been singularly quiet and dignified. But his wife, a quakerish little woman, pale and set, watched and listened with an anxiety painful to see. When the Judge dismissed the charge, with some regretful word for the injustice of its having been made, the woman arose and kissed her husband. Then she came forward, lifted the Bible, and tremblingly touched the cover with her lips.

Alexander Black.