Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 03.pdf/119

 Rh

98

curious amercement is the same as that which, in " The Case of the Swans," was still held to be by law the proper punishment of any one who stole a swan. This custom goes very far back indeed; perhaps it is a primitive Aryan custom. Our readers will doubtless remember that it is on this custom that in the Volsung Saga turns the whole story of the doom of gold. When the Ances killed Otter, his father, Rodmar, demanded as a WeregUd enough gold to cover his son's body hung up by the tail in the same way. To get this gold, Loki had finally to rob the dwarf Andwari of all his hoard, and thus brought down a doom upon all possessors of the gold which had been cursed by its own last owners.

FACETIAE.

>

Years ago there was no resident member of the bar in the county of Cape May in New Jersey, but there was some legal business to be picked up there at every circuit; so two members of the bar, then young men, but who afterwards both be came distinguished in their profession, — one of them attaining judicial honors, and the other be coming United States District Attorney, — were in the habit of visiting the county at the circuits. They were firm, fast friends; but that did not pre vent them from taking a fee on opposite sides of a cause if they had an opportunity. They were both in attendance on the evening before the opening of the court, when each was retained for one of two antagonists, who had an appeal case, coming up from a Justice of the Peace. Then the Justice of the Supreme Court, who held the circuit, presided in the Common Pleas when these appeals were tried. Both clients were unknown to their counsel. The cause came on regularly for trial the next day, and was duly heard. After the judge had rendered his de cision the client of the younger lawyer turned to him and said, " Well, I 've won; but if I had n't known you were my lawyer, I 'd have thought you were trying the other side." This led to an ex planation. The counsel said nothing to his client, but stepped across to his antagonist, and said to him, " For whom were you counsel in this cause we have just tried?" The name was mentioned; and it turned out

that the two lawyers, in blissful ignorance, had each been trying the other's cause. No injustice, how ever, had been done, as they were well matched, and each had done his best. But the best of the joke is to come. That night the young gentlemen, as was their custom, went to the judge's room to spend the evening, and in the course of their visit the judge said : " Boys, I have been considering that appeal case we tried to-day, and I have concluded that I was wrong in my decision, and to-morrow morning I am going to overrule myself and give judgment for the other side." It is very doubtful whether there ever was a case known before or since where opposing law yers tried the other's cases. An old lady from the country sat all the after noon listening to the argument of a distinguished lawyer before the Court of Appeals at Albany, and all the time industriously knitting. As she was departing, after the court had adjourned, she said to the Superintendent of the Capitol, "The man that delivered the comic lecter was pooty fair, but I 've hearn better." A lawyer walked down the street recently with his arms filled with a lot of law-books. A friend meeting him remarked, pointing to the books : "Why, I thought you carried all that stuff in your head?" "I do," quickly replied the lawyer, with a know ing wink; " these are for the judges." A Vermont law student, asked to state the dif ference between the general issue and a special issue, replied that " a special issue is when one of the parties to an action denies all the material facts in a case; the general issue is when both parties do." Judge Burke, who came from Ireland, and was somewhat of a man in South Carolina about the time of the Revolutionary War, was famous for his unfortunate remarks upon the bench. On one occasion, having to pass sentence of death on a man who had been legally convicted, he concluded as usual, with the words, "that you be hanged by the neck until you are dead." To this he feelingly added, " I am sorry for it, my friend; it is what we must all come to."