[Footnote A:  Contempt of Court, etc. By J.F.  Oswald, Q.C.  London: 
 William Clowes and Sons, Limited.]

An ill-disposed person may exhibit contempt of court in divers ways—­for example, he may scandalize the the court itself, which may be done not merely by the extreme measure of hurling missiles at the presiding judge, or loudly contemning his learning or authority, but by ostentatiously reading a newspaper in his presence, or laughing uproariously at a joke made by somebody else.  Such contempts, committed as they are in facie curiae, are criminal offences, and may be punished summarily by immediate imprisonment without the right of appeal.  It speaks well both for the great good sense of the judges and for the deep-rooted legal instincts of our people that such offences are seldom heard of.  It would be impossible nicely to define what measure of freedom of manners should be allowed in a court of justice, which, as we know, is neither a church nor a theatre, but, as a matter of practice, the happy mean between an awe-struck and unmanly silence and free-and-easy conversation is well preserved.  The practising advocate, to avoid contempt and obtain, if instructed so to do, a hearing, must obey certain sumptuary laws, for not only must he don the horsehair wig, the gown, and bands of his profession, but his upper clothing must be black, nor should his nether garment be otherwise than of sober hue.  Mr. Oswald reports Mr. Justice Byles as having once observed to the late Lord Coleridge whilst at the Bar:  ’I always listen with little pleasure to the arguments of counsel whose legs are encased in light gray trousers.’  The junior Bar is growing somewhat lax in these matters.  Dark gray coats are not unknown, and it was only the other day I observed a barrister duly robed sitting in court in a white waistcoat, apparently oblivious of the fact that whilst thus attired no judge could possibly have heard a word he said.  However, as he had nothing to say, the question did not arise.  It is doubtless the increasing Chamber practice of the judges which has occasioned this regrettable laxity.  In Chambers a judge cannot summarily commit for contempt, nor is it necessary or customary for counsel to appear before him in robes.  Some judges object to fancy waistcoats in Chambers, but others do not.  The late Sir James Bacon, who was a great stickler for forensic propriety, and who, sitting in court, would not have allowed a counsel in a white waistcoat to say a word, habitually wore one himself when sitting as vacation judge in the summer.

It must not be supposed that there can be no contempt out of court.  There can.  To use bad language on being served with legal process is to treat the court from whence such process issued with contempt.  None the less, considerable latitude of language on such occasions is allowed.  How necessary it is to protect the humble officers of the law who serve writs and subpoenas is proved by the case of one Johns,