Lord Rutherford when at the Bar put an illustration to the Bench in connection with a church case. "Suppose the Justiciary Court condemned a man to be hanged, however unjustly, could that man come into this Court of Session and ask your lordships to interfere?" and he turned round very majestically to Robertson opposing him. "Oh, my lords," said Robertson, "a case of suspension, clearly."
When a sheriff, Rutherford, dining with a number of members of the legal profession, had to reply to the toast, "The Bench of Scotland." In illustration of a trite remark that all litigants could not be expected to have the highest regard for the judges who have tried their cases, he told the following story: A worthy but unfortunate south-country farmer had fought his case in the teeth of adverse decisions in the Lower Courts to the bitter end in one of the divisions of the Court of Session. After the decision of this tribunal affirming the judgment he had appealed against, and thus finally blasting his fondest hopes, he was heard to mutter as he left the Court: "They ca' themselves senators o' the College o' Justice, but it's ma opeenion they're a' the waur o' drink!"
It was only a small point of law, but the two counsel were hammering at each other tooth and nail. They had been submitting this and that to his lordship for twenty minutes, and growing more and more heated as they argued. At last: "You're an ass, sir!" shrieked one. "And you're a liar, sir!" roared the other. Then the judge woke up. "Now that counsel have identified each other," said he, "let us proceed to the disputed points."
A recent eminent judge of the Scottish Bench when sitting to an artist for his portrait was asked what he thought of the likeness. His lordship's reply was that he thought it good enough, but he would have liked "to see a little more dislike to Gladstone's Irish Bills in the expression."
Lord Shand's shortness of stature has been a theme of several stories. When he left Edinburgh after sitting as a judge of the Court of Session for eighteen years, one of his colleagues suggested that a statue ought to be erected to him. "Or shall we say a statuette?" was the remark of another friend. His lordship lived at Newhailes--the property of one of the Dalrymple family, several members of which were eminent judges in the late seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries--and travelled to town by rail. The guard was a pawky Aberdonian, and had evidently been greatly struck by Lord Shand's appearance, for his customary salutation to him, delivered no doubt in a parental and patronising fashion, was: "And fu (how) are ye the day, ma lordie?" His lordship's manner of receiving this greeting is not recorded. Still another anecdote on the same subject is that when still an advocate, it was proposed to make Mr. Shand a Judge of Assize. On the proposal being mentioned to a colleague famous for his caustic wit, the latter with a good-humoured sneer which raised a hearty laugh at the expense of his genial friend, remarked: "Ah, a judge of a size, indeed."
