298 



A Court Leet. 



[July, 



A COURT LEET. 



The Earl of Selborne, K.G., G.C.M.G. 



If the Law of Property Bill now before Parliament becomes 

 an Act, one result, so I am told, will be that Courts Leet, which 

 have existed in England almost from time immemorial, will cease 

 to be held. I was very glad therefore to have the opportunity of 

 attending two such courts lately, each held in the best room of 

 the pubHc house of a beautiful Dorsetshire village. I had never 

 attended such a court before and was curious to see what hap- 

 pened. I cannot say that the business transacted, though neces- 

 sary, was very important, but it was transacted with much 

 formality according to the ancient observances. 



The Steward of the Manor commenced the proceedings by 

 reading a document which began " Oh yes. Oh yes, Oh yes," 

 and, as he read a sentence, the predestined foreman of the jury 

 repeated it after him. The foreman of the jury was then sworn 

 on the New Testament in very thorough-going fashion and after 

 him the four other members of the jury swore " to do the same 

 things and in the same manner as our foreman has sworn." 

 The Steward then read a formal address to the jury and asked 

 them for their " presentations." In one case the important 

 matters were the state of the ditches, watercourses, sheep dips, 

 and sinkholes. In the other case memories were racked to pre- 

 sent a correct list of the deaths of copy-holders (and, more 

 important still, of persons by whose lives copy-holds were held) 

 which had taken place since the last court was held in May, 1920. 



Three clear impressions remain with me from my experience. 



The dignity and gravity with which these proceedings were 

 conducted reminded me once again what a strong instinct of 

 ritualism is really latent in the English character. I have noticed 

 it again and again at the functions of the Friendly Societies, 

 when the members, all agricultural labourers, mechanics, trades- 

 men or farmers of some South country village, dress themselves 

 up as elaborately as a Knight of the Garter for a Chapter at 

 Windsor, and wear these strange garments all through a hot 

 summer afternoon with an ease and unconscious dignity which 

 might well be envied by a Knight. But one day I was myself 

 initiated into one of these great Societies, and it is not an exag- 

 geration to say that the ritual of that " initiation " equalled 

 anything that I have seen at a State function of any sort, or even 

 at High Mass on some special occasion in a Eoman Catholic 

 Church in France or Italy. 



