Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 02.pdf/606

 Rh engineer, it is therefore considered, ordered, and adjudged by the Court that such be the judgment of the Court, and that the same be entered on the records of the Court, and a certificate of the same be granted accordingly. , County Judge.

It seems that a lawyer is somewhat of a car penter. He can file a bill, split a hair, chop logic, dovetail an argument, make an entry, get up a case, frame an indictment, empanel a jury, put them in a box, nail a witness, hammer a judge, bore a court, chisel a client, and other like things.

Condemned Murderer (to Lawyer,). You said you could get a sentence of imprisonment for life, and here I am to be hanged next month. Lawyer. That 's all right; you will be impris oned for life, won't you? — and only a month, instead of long, weary years. Be reasonable, man! To some pungent remarks of a professional brother, a Western lawyer began his reply as follows : " May it please this Court, — Resting upon the couch of Republican equality as I do, covered with the blanket of constitutional panoply as I am, and protected by the aegis of American liberty as I feel myself to be, I despise the buzzing of the professional insect who has just sat down, and defy his futile attempts to penetrate with his puny sting the interstices of my impervious covering." "I assure you, gentlemen," said a convict, upon entering the prison, " the place has sought me, and not I the place. My own affairs really demand all my time and attention, and I may truly say that my selection to fill this position was an entire surprise. Had I consulted my own interests, I should have peremptorily declined to serve; but as I am in the hands of my friends, I see no other course but to submit." And he submitted. Mr. Justice Maule once addressed a phenom enon of innocence in a smock-frock in the fol lowing words : " Prisoner at the bar, your counsel thinks you innocent : the counsel for the prosecu tion thinks you innocent; I think you innocent.

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But a jury of your own countrymen, in the exer cise of such common-sense as they possess, which does not seem to be much, have found you 'guilty,' and it remains that I should pass upon you the sentence of the law. That sentence is that you be kept in imprisonment for one day; and as that day was yesterday, you may now go about your business." A tender-hearted North Carolina judge of "ye olden time," seeing that the evidence was going strongly against a young fellow who was being tried before him for his life, and dreading to pronounce the sentence which he felt to be inevitable, left the court-room under some pre text, to which he presently returned fortified with several strong drinks. It chanced that the judge took more than he intended of the intoxicating beverage; and when the jury (greatly to the surprise of every one) brought in a verdict of " Not guilty! " he was slumbering heavily upon the bench, and had to be aroused in order to hear the decision. With his mind still full of the dread which had overwhelmed him, and utterly unable, in the be wildered state of his brain, to take in the altered condition of affairs, the old fellow slowly erected himself. "Jones," he said solemnly, speaking in the nasal tone peculiar to him, and brushing an imaginary insect from his nose, as was his custom when under the influence of strong feeling, "it now becomes my painful duty —" "Your Honor — " put in one of the jury. "I beg, Mr. Robinson," replied the judge, "that you will not interrupt me. Mr. Jones," he continued, turning to the prisoner, " I knew your father, sir, an eminently respectable and respected citizen, who little thought that his son would come to the disgraceful end which is to be yours; for you are to be hanged by the neck, 'sir —" "Your Honor," Robinson said again, almost imploringly, " permit me to explain —" "Mr. Robinson," replied the judge, " I must insist that you do not interrupt me again [strik ing at the imaginary fly] while I am performing the most solemn duty, sir, that belongs to my office. Mr. Jones [turning again to the pris oner], I know, sir, that this sentence, which I feel constrained to pronounce, is breaking the heart of your poor old mother there [pointing