Most of them drove by roundabout routes to the judges’ entrance in Carey Street; others deemed it safer to approach on foot, and entered the great building either east or west, from Bell Yard, or Clement’s Inn. None but the police were using the great main entrance in the Strand, which had been closed and strongly guarded ever since the rising of the Courts for the vacation. The street scenes of the past few days, and the threatening conduct of the people towards those who drove in private carriages or motors, had produced a notable effect upon the traffic. Many of the omnibuses had been taken off the streets. Numbers of the cabmen, long discontented with their lot, had joined the Leaguers, and people who did hire a hansom or four-wheeler had to submit to what the driver considered the fare should be in the special circumstances of the moment. But the Strand, like other main thoroughfares, was thronged with foot passengers, roadway as well as pavement, and any sort of wheeled traffic could only be carried on under slow and apologetic conditions. All of which tended to prevent punctuality on the part of the functionaries of the law, and to increase their sense of hardship and uneasiness. The Law had so long ridden rough-shod over the people, that it seemed especially surprising that things were taking such a different turn. By a quarter past four, however, all but three of the judges and magistrates and Sir Robert Hill, Chief Commissioner of Police, had arrived, and in the big room selected for the discussion, scattered groups stood in earnest conversation on the urgent questions of the hour. It was a memorable gathering. The Master of the Rolls was supported by all the Lords Justices of the Court of Appeal. The Lord Chief Justice had as his judicial satellites a dozen judges of the King’s Bench Division--all, in fact, save those who were incapacitated by serious illness. Both the Judges of the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division were present, and also those important but lesser lights of the law, the three City judges, and the Chairmen and deputy-Chairmen of Sessions for the Counties of London and Middlesex. The Lord Mayor had been invited to attend, but a serious nervous disorder from which he had suffered ever since the riotous scenes at the Mansion House on the tenth of November, made his presence impossible. Twenty of the stipendiary magistrates from the Metropolitan Police Courts had come in obedience to the summons, two having recently died, and the others being confined to their beds through illness.