In our family’s music collection is a well-loved classic composition by the old time Trinidadian calypsonian Mighty Spoiler about the magistrate who tries himself for speeding.
The post-war hilarious hit by Spoiler or Theophilus Philip narrates the farcical tale of the one-assigned magistrate forced to hear his own minor traffic case in the small district’s lone courthouse, drawing crowds of the curious. In Creolese, the calypsonian choruses, “Heself tell heself, “You are charged for speeding. Heself start to shout, ‘The policeman lying!’ Heself tell heself, ‘Doh shout!’ He said, ‘No sport! ‘And he charge himself for contempt of court.”
Likened to the infamous ‘ole’talk’ of the region’s much-frequented rumshops and bars, “Magistrate Try Himself” is considered a cutting commentary on West Indian politics and judiciary by the hard-drinking Spoiler who succumbed to alcohol-induced illness, but is admired for his stinging strains and ability to sound as sober as a judge, even in a society that celebrates stories of ‘auto-litigation.’ The courtroom conundrum features the magistrate who is “serious, sometime laughing,” picking up a looking glass and asking himself, “Is it true you were driving too fast?” while threatening, “Look, I have a great mind to take ‘way your license book.”
