Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 02.pdf/204

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Published Monthly, at $3.00 per annum.

Bag, Single numbers, 35 cents.

Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, Horace W. Fuller, 15$ Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. The Editor -will be glad to receive contributions of articles of moderate length upon subjects of interest to the profession; also anything /he way of legal antiquities or curiosities, faceticr, anecdotes, etc. THE GREEN BAG. NEW YORK correspondent favors us with the following amusing anecdotes : — Editor of the " Green Bag" : When I was a student at Yale, I often listened to the stories told by the Hon. Simeon Baldwin, grand father of the present Law Professor of that name, — one of the most renowned names, by the way, in the annals of Connecticut. Here is one of them, which is now so old that it may be new. " This may be a paradox, but the time gives it proof." "Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth were oft n pitted against each other at the New Haven Bar. On one occasion Sherman, while addressing the jury, severely criticised the arguments of Ellsworth, charging him with forensic disingenuousness and with splitting of hairs, whereby the judgment of the jurors was led astray. 'If so disposed, gentlemen, I could split hairs as well as he.' Ellsworth there upon turned to Sherman, and twitching a hair out of his own head, handed it to Sherman with a smile of mockery. Sherman declined to receive the filament, and it dropped to the floor, where it lay in sight of the jury. Pointing to it, he said, ' Gentlemen, I said hairs, not bristles! '" The name Sherman reminds me of Evarts, the families being connected by blood-relation. William M. Evarts, whom the survivors of the class of '37 always speak of as Maxwell Evarts, is famous as a wit of a supremely caustic nature, often mingled with the good nature and savoir-faire of an accom plished man of the world. At a Yale supper I once heard him say this : " Congressmen sometimes say to me, 'Mr. Evarts, do you not find that the differ ent kinds of wine which you absorb at banquets have a tendency to disturb your digestion? ' My answer invariably is. ' Gentlemen, the different kinds of wine do not disturb my digestion : the only danger is to be apprehended from the ///different kinds of wine which 1 am sometimes so unfortunate as to meet with.'"

I may remark en passant that Mr. Evarts has an enviable capacity of digestion, which no one has ever seen disturbed or unequal to whatever stress may be laid upon it. One observer said, "He is hollow down to his boots." Mr. Evarts himself says he attributes his excellent appetite to the fact that he never takes any exercise whatever!

Another correspondent writes : — Editor of the " Green Bag" : The article in the January " Green Bag," on the "Women Lawyers of the United States " recalls an incident which happened in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia some years ago. The late Chief-Justice Cartter of that court was noted alike for his brusque speech and ready wit. On the occa sion referred to, Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood asked the court to appoint Mrs. Manila M. Ricker a constable of the court, and in the course of her remarks in support of the request, said, — "Sometimes, as your Honors know, constables have to execute writs against women, and they are generally very harsh in so doing. Besides, your Honors, as everybody knows, the constables here are a shiftless lot." "And I suppose, Mrs. Lockwood," interposed the Chief-Justice, in his stammering way, " you are prepared to defend your client against that last aspersion." The following letter from Miss Robinson forms an interesting appendix to her valuable paper on " Women Lawyers in the United States," published in our January number. — Dear " Green Bag " : Is it any wonder that perfectly honest witnesses are so often unreliable when we ourselves, with the best intention of speaking truth, slip up so badly on the treacherous ice of cold facts? I think that even from a casual glance at my paper on " Women Lawyers " in your January number of the current vcar. it must appear that I used as much care in its composition as I would in preparing the declaration in my very best case for my very best client, and yet it proves to be demurrable in one point, and probably in others. My " sister-in-law,'" Mrs. Marion