Delivery, the Exchequer, the Ecclesiastical, the Common Law, the two
Deemsters' Courts for the north and south of the island, the Seneschal's
Court, the Consistorial, the Licensing, and the High Bailiff's. Each
sheading, or subdivision, has its own coroner or sheriff, who can appoint
a "lockman" as his deputy; and each parish (there are seventeen) has its
own captain and a "sumner," whose duty in old times was to keep order in
church and "beat all the doggs." Manx law had, and perhaps to some extent
still has, a similar reputation either for allowing criminals in the
island to escape easily, or for permitting English criminals to remain
unpunished; hence the old ribald verse which represents the Devil
singing--
"That little spot I cannot spare,
For all my choicest friends are there."
The Deemster's oath is a curiosity in itself:--"I do swear that I will
execute the laws of the isle justly betwixt party and party as
indifferently as the herring's backbone doth lie in the midst of the
fish." Formerly the elective House of Keys possessed judicial as well as
legislative functions, but this power was taken from it by the Act of
1866. Laws are initiated in the Council and the Tynwald Court, which
promulgates them, consists of the members of the Council, and the House of
Keys, who unite for the occasion. Tynwald Day as described by Mr. Hall
Caine is an interesting, historic, but not an impressive ceremony. A
thousand years ago the Norsemen established a form of government on the
island, and every fifth of July the Manxman has his open-air Parliament
for the promulgation of laws. But it is a gala day rather than a day of
business. "Reluctantly I admit," writes Mr. Hall Caine, "that the
proceedings were, in themselves, long, tiresome, ineffectual, formless,
unimpressive, and unpicturesque. The senior Deemster, the amiable and
venerable Sir Wm. Drinkwater, read the titles of the new laws in English.
Then the coroner of the premier sheading, Glenfaba, recited the same
titles in Manx. Hardly anybody heard them; hardly anybody listened."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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