Notes

Abstract

OUR readers may remember that, last autumn; apropos of a great patent case of colossal dimensions which was then before the Courts, we published an article urging that, in the interests of speedy justice, no less than for the dignity of science and its professors, it was most desirable that advantage should be taken of the provisions which already exist in our law, and especially in the Judicature Act of 1873 and its amending statutes, and in the rules of the Supreme Court framed under them, for the employment of scientific assessors or experts to aid the judge in strictly scientific cases. It may be remembered that, even in the very case on which we then commented, the tardy employment of Prof. Stokes to aid Mr. Justice Kay was productive of most satisfactory results. We are glad, therefore, to notice that, in a case of some difficulty which came before Lord Coleridge last week, the same eminent man was again called in, and again with the result of relieving the Court from the task of hearing a mass of expert evidence with which no judge and jury are competent to deal satisfactorily. The whole question at issue was whether a certain anemometer, of which one of the parties was patentee and the other the purchaser, came up to the description of its qualities given by the vendor. A considerable array of counsel appeared on both sides, and it was arranged that the services of Prof. Stokes should be called in to the aid of the Court. Seven of the anemometers were submitted to him, and, after an investigation by him, his report was read, and upon it judgment was given. The result is, that the report of the case occupies less than a third of a column of the Times. Without the services of Prof. Stokes, or some similar sworn expert, we should have had half-a-dozen or more expert witnesses on one side contradicted by half-a-dozen expert witnesses on the other side; a case which would have lasted three or four days before a wearied judge, conscientiously striving to understand purely technical details, and a perplexed and confused jury; great loss to both parties; an unsatisfactory result; and, as we think, no little scandal to science and scientific men. All this has been prevented by the very simple expedient of calling in an eminent man of science to make a sworn report on the purely technical details, and leaving the rest to the ordinary administration of our Courts. Herein, we are persuaded, lie the proper functions of scientific men in the administration of public justice.