Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/139

 118

very fact of dryness and dustiness seems to provoke a thirst for fun, and we should not be far wrong in saying that our profession has been productive of a greater mass of humor and witticism than any other calling under the sun. Few people think of mak ing jokes about architects, for instance, or bankers; and if these worthies do conde scend to become facetious inter sc, they are denied the publicity which has conferred im mortality on repartees in open court. Wit and humor are alike ephemeral, and subject to the changes of times and tastes. The jokes of our Scotch ancestors, some cen turies ago, are often silly and disagreeable; while their Acts of Parliament are very quaint reading, and are often quoted for the pure purpose of amusement. Let us think of the time when posterity will go to sleep with "Punch " or " Pickwick " in its hands, and become convulsed with laughter over " Pub. Gen. Statutes, 1883." But even when humor has lost its charm as such, it retains its value as the medium by which many little scraps and fragments of' history and manners have been preserved to us. If we have any interest, then, in the former life of our profession, or if we care to glance for an idle moment at the lighter side of its daily work in past times, we shall find that humor has here and there preserved some such records for us, and has, let us hope, attained the unimpeachable result of "combining amusement with instruction." Guillaume Bouche, Sieur de Brocourt, was a bookseller of Poitiers, who also per formed certain legal functions in that town, where he was born in 1526. This man wrote a book which is little known, and, perhaps, as little deserves to be known, outside the circle of bibliomaniacs. It is a collection — of a somewhat childish and somewhat Rabe laisian character - of anecdotes and conver sations about almost everything under the sun. Only one part of it, however, has any particular interest for us, and that is a chap ter headed : " Des juges, des advocats, des proces et plaideurs."

It is as well to say, at the outset, that the author adopts a tone of caustic raillery al most throughout, so that it is difficult to gather the bent of his sober thoughts on any subject. The discussion, which is supposed to take place amid a circle of choice com panions, commences in a manner by no means flattering to the legal profession. For almost the first inquiry proposed, is why advocates should so often be called thieves! " When we call a Breton thief," one of the company remarks, " there is at least rhyme {Breton, Carron), and when we call a miller, for instance, thief, there is reason; but when we call an advocate thief, there is neither rhyme nor reason." Another of the company gives an account of a case in which he had been pursuer. "I neither lost nor won," he says, " and the case is in suspense; for although I had received a good donation in proper and authentic form and signed by the donor, the opposite party alleged that he who had given it me was not ' wise enough,' nor in his proper senses; and this being so, that he could not dispose of his property, much less give it away, and that the law forbade a man, who was not 'wise enough,' to part with his goods by donation. Thereupon I gave up hopes of my case, since we never find that a wise man will give away his property, besides the fact that there would be great difficulty in finding a man wise enough to judge whether he who had given me the gift was so, seeing that in the whole of Greece, as M. Bodin says, there were only seven wise men, and there is no evidence as to who adjudged them to be so." It is perhaps fortunate that such metaphysical litigants are rare in our day. The next story is told of a merchant who asked a painter to paint for him the picture of a horse lying on its back with its legs in the air. The artist painted the horse, but could not bring himself to depict it in such an absurd position. On delivery, the work of art was refused for this reason; but on the case coming before a judge, he turned