Recent Comments

1. about 1 month ago on Andy Capp

   Could be worse. At least it isn’t “I say, I say, I say…!”

2. about 1 month ago on Andy Capp

   Very old joke — I’ve seen variations on this going back over a century (usually with pianos).

3. about 1 month ago on Andy Capp

   That’s how I interpret it.

4. about 1 month ago on Andy Capp

   @DKHenderson Wiki, in its entry on court dress, suggests that the practice was a bit more widespread that I’d been led to believe at law school (and cites some unusual traditions, like on Maryland’s Supreme Court), but I continue to maintain the practice was long dead before the mid-19th century, as Wiki suggests.

5. about 1 month ago on Andy Capp

   @DKHenderson. Apparently, at least one U.S. Supreme Court judge (William Cushing), who had been in the habit of wearing wigs while on the bench in Massachusetts pre-Revolution, wore a wig on the Supreme Court but soon discarded it, possibly owing to criticism. His portrait at the Supreme Court shows him wearing a wig.

6. about 1 month ago on Andy Capp

   @DKHenderson. As to lawyers, one should keep in mind that unlike the practice in the UK, the legal profession in the US was, and is, not formally divided into solicitors (who traditionally did not appear in court) and barristers/silks (who had a monopoly on court practice). In theory, any lawyer admitted to the practice of law can appear and argue in court. The egalitarian effects of the Revolution, and the fact that a large number of the leaders were lawyers by profession, meant that whatever faint practice existed vanished after the Revolution.

7. about 1 month ago on Andy Capp

   @DKHenderson This came up when I was in law school. The tradition never really got a firm foothold in this country before 1776, as there weren’t all that many places where you would have a court sophisticated enough to have a (relatively) high ranking judge and much more formal procedures. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, Williamsburg, and that’s about it. There was some wearing of the wigs and gowns by judges, but the Revolution put a firm stop to it, especially in Boston and, after Evacuation Day, New York. (Thomas Jefferson, a staunch opponent of the practice, said something to the effect of the outfit making judges look like rats peering out of bunches of oakum.) (Con’t)

8. about 1 month ago on Andy Capp

   Well, it would depend on what court you’re in. Obviously, you couldn’t at the Old Bailey, but magistrates and judges at the lower courts in the UK, from what I understand, don’t go the whole wig-and-gown routine, and many just wear suits. Of course, “on the way in” is vague, and could encompass the judge entering the building before changing.

9. about 2 months ago on Andy Capp

   (I wasn’t aware that the strip had retired the Percy character. Did he get a final strip?)

10. about 2 months ago on Endtown

    Hmmm!