24
WALTER GREENWOOD
He was himself once a party when he made a complaint against one Wong Ayow who he found cutting grass in his garden. The defendant said he supplied milk to Francis and thought he could take the grass. However he was convicted and fined twenty-five cents. His views about the organisation of the legal profession appear from a letter he wrote to the Daily Press in 1878 in reply to an editorial critical of barristers' fees. Hong Kong originally had a single profession but later adopted a divided one and he wrote "Now as everybody knows barristers are paid as a rule at a higher rate than attorneys and properly so, as they profess to give and as a rule do give a higher quality of advice and advocacy. Mind, I do not say that all barristers are better advisers and advocates than any attorney. There are attorneys who as advisers and advocates are more skilful and experienced than many barristers. The fact is there ought not to exist in a colony like this a division between the two branches of the profession. It was so here once and ought to be again. The retrograde step was taken through the efforts of a clique as most things are done here”. In 1892 he expressed opposition to making the Attorney General a full time salaried official, saying that there would be a loss of independence and that “no amount of study, no amount of theory will make a lawyer. Nothing but the actual work of the Courts will enable a man to conduct cases.
Francis held a number of acting judicial appointments from 1878 to 1880. Because of long absences of officials on leave, or through illness, it was necessary to have a system of acting appointments and from time to time civilians were used. His first appointment was as Police Magistrate in September 1878. The reports of his cases indicate that he was positive and in charge of the proceedings but inclined to be impatient. There was a letter of complaint to the press about him for telling a defendant to stop making signs to witnesses and disbelieving him when he said he had St. Vitus's dance. Another letter urged that non-legally qualified magistrates be brought back. However when he sat again as a magistrate in 1880 his sentences were compared favourably with those of Ng Choy who was more lenient, and there was complaint of the termination of his appointment. In April 1879 he was appointed Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court (stigmatised by The Times of 1863 as the greatest nuisance in the East) and in February 1880 he presided over the Criminal Sessions. In one case he sentenced...
24
WALTER GREENWOOD
He was himself once a party when he made a complaint against one Wong Ayow who he found cutting grass in his garden. The defendant said he supplied milk to Francis and thought he could take the grass. However he was convicted and fined twenty-five cents. His views about the organisation of the legal profession appear from a letter he wrote to the Daily Press in 1878 in reply to an editorial critical of barristers' fees. Hong Kong originally had a single profession but later adopted a divided one and he wrote "Now as everybody knows barristers are paid as a rule at a higher rate than attorneys and properly so, as they profess to give and as a rule do give a higher quality of advice and advocacy. Mind, I do not say that all barristers are better advisers and advocates than any attorney. There are attorneys who as advisers and advocates are more skilful and experienced than many barristers. The fact is there ought not to exist in a colony like this a division between the two branches of the profession. It was so here once and ought to be again. The retrograde step was taken through the efforts of a clique as most things are done here”. In 1892 he expressed opposition to making the Attorney General a full time salaried official, saying that there would be a loss of independence and that “no amount of study, no amount of theory will make a lawyer. Nothing but the actual work of the Courts will enable a man to conduct cases.
Francis held a number of acting judicial appointments from 1878 to 1880. Because of long absences of officials on leave, or through illness, it was necessary to have a system of acting ap- pointments and from time to time civilians were used. His first appointment was as Police Magistrate in September 1878. The reports of his cases indicate that he was positive and in charge of the proceedings but inclined to be impatient. There was a letter of complaint to the press about him for telling a defendant to stop making signs to witnesses and disbelieving him when he said he had St. Vitus's dance. Another letter urged that non-legally quali- fied magistrates be brought back. However when he sat again as a magistrate in 1880 his sentences were compared favourably with those of Ng Choy who was more lenient, and there was complaint of the termination of his appointment. In April 1879 he was ap- pointed Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court (stigmatised by The Times of 1863 as the greatest nuisance in the East) and in February 1880 he presided over the Criminal Sessions. In one case he sen-
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