Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/412

Rh there could be no attainder, and consequently no escheat. For this reason, in Sir Matthew Hale's time, it was the constant practice at Newgate to tie together with whipcord the two thumbs of any refractory person, and the whipcord with the aid of a parson soon produced the desired effect. If more were required, recourse was had to the "peine forte et dure," the more horrible form of torture.

But we cannot linger over these mementoes of an age long since gone by. Surely it is no matter of regret for us that in the course of time there are so many changes, so many ruins, so many monuments of social or judicial wisdom, "that as things wiped out with a sponge do perish." Time, we are happy to know, still brandishes his sponge, and there still exist judicial curiosities, doomed to, we hope, prompt effacement.—Household Words.

THE CHRONICLE OF THE GREEN BAG.

.

[Read before the Graduating Class of '89 of the Law School of the University of Michigan.]

ERE comes to-day, all laurel crowned, A train of hope-inspired youth, To bear away the fruitful meed
 * Of earnest precept, born of truth;

To have upon their shoulders laid
 * A hand, whose lingering pressure tells

The love that breathes the tenderness
 * Of Alma Mater's fond farewells.

These lights of law,—like youthful knights
 * Who won their spurs in tourney frays,

Where rose-strewn sward of velvet turf
 * Reflected back the day-god's rays,—

Stand now, the mimic battle o'er,
 * The wreathed chaplet thrown aside,

Armed cap-a-pie for bold crusade,
 * The flower of all their country's pride.

They go from hence where they have learned
 * The art of battle for the right;

There glistens on the breast of each
 * The talismanic star of light.

Well have they learned and won the right
 * Their high profession's robes to don;

And later on in graver years
 * Will meetly put the ermine on.

Now, in these nineteenth-century times,
 * The orders, guilds, and crafts are known

By symbolism scarce at all,
 * And fewer still, by wig or gown.

The layman and professor are
 * Mixed in the crowds that jostle on,

And none can tell by outward sign
 * The savant from the artisan.

But in the good old earlier days,
 * The preachers, lawyers, doctors, went

Enrobed, or carrying some odd thing;
 * And laymen bowed acknowledgement.

In ancient times, so far agone
 * 'T is dim in legendary air,

The gentry of our order 'gan
 * To carry green bags everywhere.

Arising from necessity,
 * The custom grew to widespread use,

In years before Will Shakspeare sung
 * Or Spenser wooed the lyric muse.

From town to town where courts were sate,
 * The lawyers rode like knights and squires,

On horse-back through the green-hedged lanes
 * Of Merrie England's fertile shires.

And in this gray old Gothic age—
 * As told in storied tapestry—

A green bag hung to saddle bows
 * Of all this valiant errantry.