times heard a witness detail the movements of two vehicles for several moments before the collision, and later on, in answer to some indirect question, drop out the statement: “I turned round directly I heard the crash." This dates the moment when he was first in a position to give testimony. All his former statements are the result of suggestion. He honestly believes now that he saw these things, but of course he did not. That is a simple example of the process of eliminating false reminiscences; it is generally far more difficult and complicated, but Professor Swift's experiment is a warning to lawyers and judges of the necessity for a very watchful observation of human testimony.

I am glad to know myself, and I hope I have convinced my fellow-citizens, that the crime of perjury is a rare one in our courts and that most of the errors of testimony are due to defective observation, false reminiscences, the deflecting influence of suggestion, and the pleasures of imagination. Very often, too, the "wish to believe" is a strong factor in bringing about false testimony. How many English citizens "knew a friend" who had seen those splendid hordes of Russians passing through the country with the snow on their boots in midnight trains at the beginning of the war! It would be harsh to call such legends perjuries.

When mankind understands more fully and scientifically the real causes of error in human testimony which the professors have only in recent years begun to study scientifically, we shall be able to set about amending our ways and checking our bias and imagination and shunning the perils of undue suggestion. As creative evolution

removes the homo sapiens of the future yet further away from his Neanderthal ancestors, we may hope that he will gradually eliminate all undesirable elements from his sworn testimony in the courts so that the judges of the future may have simpler and less anxious tasks.

Chapter VII: Concerning Whistler v.
Ruskin*

F

RIENDLY chance threw in my way an old brief. What a vast amount of biographical and social history lies hidden in these foolscap folios tipped

on to the solicitors' slag heap after the fires of litigation are burnt out and forgotten. What would we give, for instance, for Mr. St. John's brief in Hampden's case with the Defendant's own suggestions of the line to be taken by his advocate, or for Brougham's brief in Queen Caroline's case, or Campbell's brief in "Norton v. Melbourne." The true story of many a cause célèbre is never made manifest in the evidence given or in the advocates' orations, but might be recovered from these old papers when the dust of ages has rendered them immune from scandal.

The title of this particular brief is: "1877 W. No. 818. In the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division. Whistler v. Ruskin. Brief on behalf of the Defendant. The Attorney-General, with you Mr. C. Bowen." I was deeply interested in this libel action at the time, as my father, Serjeant Parry, appeared with Mr. Petheram for

*The author gratefully acknowledges the kind permission of Miss R. Birnie Philip, the executrix of Mr. Whistler, and Mr. Alexander Wedderburn, K.C., the executor of Mr. Ruskin, to make use of the documents hitherto unpublished which are quoted in this essay.

the Plaintiff and ultimately wrested from Sir John Holker the glorious victory of a farthing damages.

The unfortunate dispute which brought these two great ones into the squalid purlieus of Westminster Hall was not based upon any mean personal antagonism, but was a passing form of the eternal quarrel between those who worship the art of personal impression and those who demand a literary inspiration-a picture with a story. Could it have been tried before a tribunal of " amateurs eager to give ear to the earnest pleading of the litigants good might have come of the contest, but before Baron Huddlestone and a Middlesex jury who cared for none of these things the trial was a sorry farce.

The trouble began in this way. Ruskin was at the zenith of his fame as an art critic and had adopted the public rôle of prophet. He was wont to attack all and sundry with a savage merriment which even his best friends at times resented. The story goes that he wrote to a friend hoping that a fierce criticism published by him on his friend's picture would make no difference in their friendship. To which his friend had the wit to reply, "Dear Ruskin-Next time I meet you I shall knock you down, but I hope it will make no difference in our friendship."

In his own circle this kind of thing did not matter, but Whistler was not of the circle. Twelve years before Swinburne had asked Ruskin to come with Burne-Jones and himself to Whistler's studio, but the visit was never made. "I wish you could accompany us," he writes. "Whistler, as any artist worthy of his rank must be, is of course desirous to meet you and to let you see his

immediate work. As (I think) he has never met you, you will see that his desire to have it out with you face to face must spring simply from knowledge and appreciation of your works." The prophet of Herne Hill was not inclined to come down into the studio and "have it out " with the apostle of a new gospel and the men never met.

In the year 1877 Ruskin was writing his letters to working men which he entitled "Fors Clavigera." The libel Whistler complained of appeared in Letter 79, and is dated "Herne Hill, June 18th, 1877." That Ruskin ever thought of or intended to injure Whistler personally is unthinkable. If you read the whole letter it is clear that the very mention of Whistler was almost accidental. He was striving to teach the lesson that true co-operation was not a policy of privileged members combining for their own advantage, but that we must "do the best we can for all men." This leads him to consider whether under present conditions any sort of Art is at all possible, and he arrives at the characteristic conclusion that it is not. Music he finds is possible, and that is because" our music has been chosen for us by our masters, and our pictures have been chosen by ourselves." If someone like Charles Hallé could guide us in our choice of pictures, as he does in music, all would be well.

This of necessity brings him to the recent opening of the Grosvenor Gallery by Sir Coutts Lindsay, and giving him credit for good intentions he dismisses him lightly with the phrase "that he is at present an amateur both in art and shop-keeping." He then proceeds to tell his working-men readers that the work of his friend BurneJones "is the only art work in England which will be