Advocate Jan 2014

THE ADVOCATE VOL. 72 PART 1 JANUARY 2014
145
The socialist-labor triangle at the end of the Opposition benches
appeared to treat the whole affair as a joke, and Hawthornthwaite, perhaps
with the scant ginger thatch of Chief Justice Gordon Hunter in mind, introduced
an amendment to compel all judges and lawyers to wear red wigs.
A number of Conservatives supported his bizarre sarcasm. Among them
was my boss, F.L. Carter-Cotton, owner of the Vancouver News-Advertiser
and president of the council. This seemed rather out of place in one of such
grave, Confucian air, but he advised me to make it clear that such support
was purely in derision of the bill. So the amendment received a small
vote, as I think the mover expected it would, as a matter never seriously
considered.
Among the judges and lawyers I only remember one voice raised in serious
opposition. It was that of Mr. Justice Archer Martin, even hinting that
it should be disregarded. But Chief Justice Hunter, who seemed never to
care whether he appeared on the bench in a black robe or a nightgown,
ordered that the mandate be obeyed.
In fact, Mr. Justice Martin, who in turn became a chief justice, was a man
of seemingly paradoxical character. From his Irish birth he appeared to have
inherited a streak of rebellion, yet he was the greatest stickler of all for the
preservation of British customs in the courts. Like an Eldon of old he still
wrote with a goose quill pen and sanded the letters for drying. He was a dignified
figure as he sat there in the splendor of wig and robes and resented
any innovation.
One day a reporter was standing in the courtroom door as the judge
passed, and said severely, “Why don’t you remove your hat?”
The reporter said that his hat went down to his knees and his heart to his
boots under the withering rebuke. Yet it was reserved to Mr. Justice Martin
to return to his ancient glory in one way, since as a judge of the Exchequer
Court, which is under federal jurisdiction, the wig always remained on his
head in dealing with such cases.
I have sometimes heard the removal of the wigs attributed to the erratic
Joseph Martin, but I know positively that Stuart Henderson was the mover
of the bill, as I was in the press gallery at the time.
Well, Martin and Henderson have long since passed from the scene, and
now after over half a century of trial, I doubt whether any of our judges and
lawyers today would wish to return to the bob-tailed, curly peruke with all
its cost and discomfort.
It is said there are fewer bald legal heads as a result of the change.
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