JUDICIARY: Maiden Assize

When Acting Justice Ralph M. Smith opened district court in Somerville, Mass, one morning last week, beaming Clerk Louis Connolly presented him with an empty docket. There had not been a single arrest in Somerville for 34 hours. Beaming even more brightly, Clerk Connolly then handed up a package from a 5-&-10¢ store. Contents: a pair of white gloves. Significance: When judges made a circuit of ancient English towns to hold assizes, any town which had no criminals to be tried celebrated such a "maiden assize" by presenting the judges with white gloves—because judges as a mark of submission to the Crown wore none while executing the royal commission.

Beaming back at Traditionalist Connolly, who learned his trick from Anglophile Clerk Daniel Henry Bradley, Justice Smith put on his gloves, closed Somerville's maiden assize.