From Saunders’s News-Letter, a plea for soft furnishings to ease noise and soothe the aching hindquarters of jurors and Junior Counsel in the Irish Court of Exchequer, 22 February 1860:
“EXCHEQUER NISI PRIUS – Yesterday
STATE OF THE COURT
The proceedings were interrupted by the noisy tramping of feet passing from the gallery to the hall, and the Chief Baron drew the attention of the tipstaffs to it, with a view to the removal of the cause.
Mr. Armstrong, QC, said that the noise arose from the stumping and stamping of people who were rapidly making their way out of the court. The best way to prevent such noise would be to put mat on the passages, or, as is done in the courts of Liverpool, lay down gutta percha.
This suggestion would, if carried out, be productive of much comfort and public convenience, not only in the Court of Exchequer, but in every court in the hall, especially in the Rolls Court where the stumping, stamping, talking and coughing render hearing almost impossible.
It is to be hoped that these improvements may be made before next Term, and then the Court of Exchequer may be better heated and ventilated than it is at present, for the heat from hot water pipes is now intolerable to many, and the air comes into the court, when the windows have been raised, like the water of a canal lock when the sluice gates have been opened in one solid and dangerous volume.
A Juror, properly conceiving that every man must take care of his own interests, suggested that the jury should not be forgotten in the arrangement for the improvement of the court. It would be, he said, advisable to accommodate them with cushions. At present they had nothing to sit on but plain boards. The jurors are not worse off than the Junior Bar in all the courts, but both deserve much more paternal treatment from the authorities, who, if these consist not of the head of each court, are at all events the guardian of the bench and bar, the right honourable and honourable benchers.”
Image Credit: The Graphic, 22 January 1881, via British Newspaper Archive.
