Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 04.pdf/264

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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 in the way of legal antiquities or curiosities, facelice, anecdotes, etc. THE GREEN BAG. HPHE following letter was called forth by Judge Bleckley's " Letter to Posterity," published in our February number : — New York, 1892. My dear Judge Bleckley, — I have read your letter in much the spirit in which I suppose Gamaliel was listened to in the olden days, though certainly, unlike Gamaliel, you are no Pharisee. The younger members of the bar naturally have sharp ears for words of wisdom which drop from the lips of older and more experienced men, and I think my contemporaries owe to you, sir, a debt of grati tude; for you have shown them that not even the viginti lucnbrationes annos need necessarily dry up the fountains of the human heart, nor render the judicial heights of legal ambition cold, stark, and unapproachable. I was particularly delighted with your confession of your inability to be always sure that yourdecisions were correct, because of the dogmatism which not infrequently infects many opinions. To be sure, if the law is not on one side it must be on the other, and to decide yourself one way and then submit with equanimity to having your colleagues decide the other, seems to me to be the attainment of the highest wisdom; for by so doing, you relieve yourself of all responsibility. That you should enliven your labors in the law by an occasional tilt at the Muse is creditable alike to both your head and your heart. Truth, as I know it (only in small part, to be sure), loses nothing from wearing the garb of pleasantry : and rules of law are still applicable, though expounded in a vein of kindly humor. 1 followed with deep interest your account of your own professional growth, and my heart beat fast at your picture of the " phantom lady of the law" who engrossed your youthful imagination. The "jealous mistress " who enthralled you can be no other than she who has held a fitful sway over my own affections, and I felt as I read that your own devotion was worthy of emulation. 3'

Posterity will read and re-read your letter with delight, as nodoubt the coming generation of Georgia lawyers will your opinions. I cannot close without expressing the hope that 1 may hear from you again, and that some part, at least, of the wisdom you have attained unto may become my own possession. I am, sir, Very respectfully yours, Fitz Fitzgerald.

LEGAL, ANTIQUITIES. In Queen Anne's reign the decree of the Uni versity of Oxford, in 1683, respecting passive obe dience, was ordered by the House of Commons, in 17 10, to be burned by the hands of the com mon hangman, as contrary to the liberty of the subject and the law of the land. In 1751 a sedi tious libel entitled " Constitutional Queries recom mended to every true Briton " was ordered by the House of Commons to be burned by the hands of the common hangman in Palace Yard at 1 p. m., and the Sheriff of Middlesex was to attend and cause the same to be burned accordingly. When Wilkes's libel in the "North Briton." No. 45, was brought to the knowledge of the House of Com mons in 1763, the House resolved that it was false, scandalous, and seditious, and tending to excite to traitorous insurrections, and ordered that it should be burned by the bands of the common hangman in Cheapside. But when the sheriff pro ceeded to see the order executed, the mob were violent, and pelted the officials with stones and missiles, and they burned a petticoat and jack boots in its stead. In the Rolls of Parliament, 1445, is a petition from the commons of two counties, showing that the number of attorneys had lately increased from six or eight to fourteen, whereby the peace of those counties had been greatly interrupted by suits. The Commons, therefore, petitioned that there shall be no more than six common attorneys for Norfolk, six for Suffolk, and two for the city of Norwich. The king granted the petition.