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(7) The late Sir John Patteson, when in his seventieth year, attended
an annual ploughing-match dinner at Feniton, Devon, at which he
thought it worth his while to combat the notion, still too
prevalent, that because a man does not work merely with his bones
and muscles, he is therefore not entitled to the appellation of a
workingman. "In recollecting similar meetings to the present," he
said, "I remember my friend, John Pyle, rather throwing it in my
teeth that I had not worked for nothing; but I told him, 'Mr.
Pyle, you do not know what you are talking about. We are all
workers. The man who ploughs the field and who digs the hedge is
a worker; but there are other workers in other stations of life as
well. For myself, I can say that I have been a worker ever since
I have been a boy.'... Then I told him that the office of judge
was by no means a sinecure, for that a judge worked as hard as any
man in the country. He has to work at very difficult questions of
law, which are brought before him continually, giving him great
anxiety; and sometimes the lives of his fellow-creatures are
placed in his hands, and are dependent very much upon the manner
in which he places the facts before the jury. That is a matter of
no little anxiety, I can assure you. Let any man think as he
will, there is no man who has been through the ordeal for the
length of time that I have, but must feel conscious of the
importance and gravity of the duty which is cast upon a judge.
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