“Instead, therefore, of going ‘hatting,’ or indulging in a ‘Johnny Woodser,’ _anglicé_ drinking by himself, he, heedlessly indiscreet, or heedless and indiscreet—as one with a keen scent for good English would prefer—hobnobs with the jury. He should have known better. That is to say, he knew better and should have acted better—but did not. In the first place, the jury was probably a common jury; or, if a special jury, they were probably still more common, with whom no eminent counsel should foregather; because special juries generally consist of publicans, ex-publicans, or retired gaol-warders, or a proportion of each; worthy citizens, doubtless, good fathers, good husbands, and so forth, who paying so much rates per annum for their ‘bits of property’ are thereby and therefore pre-eminently qualified by law, reason, and common sense to decide in a jiffy all those subtle points of tort or contract in which ordinary bodies, from the Full Court to the Privy Council, find so many difficulties. “The jury having given in their verdict in favour of the defendants, the majority of the Full Court have decided that this drinking business was a good ground of appeal. Now, although, as a rule, what everybody says must be untrue, we are inclined to agree with the majority in this case, and to disagree with the minority, consisting of A’Beckett, J. That learned Judge said ‘he had the misfortune to differ from his learned brothers as to the course which should be taken with regard to the appeal.... What occurred was done openly, and it was the very last mode of approaching a jury improperly, that any man in his “sober glass of wine” senses would attempt. They might say it did not look well to see counsel treated by jurymen.... Being convinced that the jury were not influenced, and that the fact that counsel and solicitor had accepted a sixpennyworth of hospitality from one of the jurymen would not induce anyone to suppose that they would be influenced, he thought this new trial should not be granted.’ “That is all very well, but Mr. Justice A’Beckett seldom practised on the common-law side of the Court, and, as Ulpian says (we translate):— “‘Equity’s an evil, but common law’s the devil.’ _Pandecta_, tom. ccix., p. xviii, _passim_. And although jurymen are sworn to give their verdict according to the evidence, and, as a rule, observe their oath so sworn on a tenpenny Bible, yet evidence seen through the medium of a tumbler full of grog with, it may be, a little lemon and sugar in it, and in company with an advocate for one of the parties only, becomes a somewhat lop-sided affair. Hospitality is a most excellent, and we fear, in these times of depression, too rare a practice, and we should be the last to say anything to discourage it; but when administered in sixpennyworths by jurymen to counsel—of one of the parties only—during the progress of a case, and before a bar counter, it is, to say the least, somewhat out of place.