Master Pleader
Sir Patrick Hastings. By H. Montgomery 1-0 (Heinemann, 30s.) IN spite of the general boom in personality cOl° public interest in the characters of leading ad' catcs has declined. This may be because they not appear on television, but there are other P°5: sible explanations; jury trials in civil actions 118,.,4 virtually lapsed; barristers too have faded. or public taste has veered towards the ITI°1 astringent specimen. Mr. Gerald Gardiner. any rate, is probably the current popular hcrc: A hundred, even thirty, years ago things We',, very different, as Mr. Montgomery Hyde's cellent biography demonstrates. Between wars Sir Patrick Hastings was one of the fani0"051 men of the country. He appeared in a serieg spectacular jury trials, mostly civil actinl which usually sounded that encouraging scan in-high-places note calculated to cheer enthral the pubs and dinner parties of Englano'; among many others, the libel action in whI the Princess Youssoupoff recovered from M-G-M for a film suggesting that 511; had been raped by Rasputin, the Russe,.. divorce suit, Marie Stopcs versus Hall,1 Sutherland and the action in which it was clainle on behalf of Miss Bette Davis that the contrs5 under which she was earning $3,000 a week one of slavery. The verbatim glimpses in tbrt book of Sir Patrick exercising the sour 8.4 Ot cross-examination, in which he particuln excelled, arc superb. Sometimes he would lre,,$le very delicately, as when extracting invaluavo admissions from the distinguished account50( Lord Plender; often he proceeded in a series it puncturing jabs, as when demolishing Mr. Halle del Booth, MP; occasionally he compressed lo whole absurdity of his opponent's case into 0i5 devastating question, a's in the 'Yo-Yo' which a Mr. Blennerhassett, whose name been unwittingly used in an advertiserne",; claimed that his Stock Exchange colleaki`4 would think he was breaking the rule ago° advertising: If you wanted to advertise yourself 35,4 member of the Stock Exchange, would select a picture of yourself being escorted 1° madhouse with a yo-yo?
No less spectacular in its own way than cases, if rather more engaging, was Sir Patr1;. Hastings's character. A man of immense del'to mination, he succeeded in working his waY i".11 the Bar with no private means at all (so 074 for those who go on about subsidies to Y°1100 barristers) and managed to persuade, of to people, Mr. Horace Avory (later the judge)p, give him the only other place in his charnheo The story of his relations with that formid".0 man reflects the highest credit on both part.,,le. Hastings was an oddly complex person, scw',4 thing of a puritan, something of a bohen11" acutely clever, yet nothing of an intellecti (his reading was detective stories and law reP°1 —even his warmest admirers are unlikelY see him as a Simon or a Cripps), fearless generous always, a Labour MP for a depr area with a house in Curzon Street and Vietir4 servants. His successful, and disastrous, velit.or, into politics was the only blot on his career,•0 illustrates the surprisingly thin skin which 01" barristers manage to retain for their own aceo° Mr. Hyde's book is intelligent, disciplined thoroughly professional. His accounts of litigation are so good that they make one I for more.
ROBERT LI
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