Laws of War

Last week the Battle of Britain was three months old. Prime Minister Churchill dug up an old gag to keep British hearts high: "It's a great life if you don't weaken." Out of the continued bombings --London had 300 alarms, and the Midlands got it hard--came two items which said a lot about whether or not Britons were weakening:

>Home Guardsman Harry Foulds was haled before the magistrates of Chatham, Kent, charged with theft from the Crown of a pistol, ammunition and a helmet which he had taken from a bailed-out German airman. Defense Counsel Gerald Thesinger based his case on Rex v. Broom, in the reign of William III, which was based in turn on a case tried during the reign of Henry VIII. These cases upheld the right of any British subject to retain any property he may be able to seize from "the King's enemy." "Therefore," argued Thesinger, "the property was never vested in the Crown."

Clerk of court: "Under your argument, Home Guards capturing tanks would be able to keep them?"

Thesinger: "Yes, subject to a military law which may apply to the capture of fortresses."

The magistrates upheld the 260-year-old decision of Rex v. Broom and freed Foulds, who was carried from the court by cheering crowds.

>In a London court tall, thin Frederick George Leighton-Morris, 30, who had been rejected for police and fire service because of "groggy heart and wanky lungs," was charged with endangering a church. One night Leighton-Morris heard that an unexploded bomb had fallen into his apartment house. He decided to investigate. "I went up the fire escape and saw the bomb on the floor, so I picked it up and went down the stairs. I was going to dump the damn thing in St. James's Park, but it was very heavy so I put it down to rest for a moment. ... I laid it down beside a church which had already been damaged: I thought it the safest place--away from dwelling houses." Here police found him and arrested him.

Said the magistrate: "No person other than those in authority can be allowed to decide in what part of London a delayed-action bomb should go off." He fined Leighton-Morris -L-100, gave him 28 days to pay. Mr. Leighton-Morris' defiant comment: "Even if I had a hundred thousand in the bank, I'd rather do three months than pay the fine."

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