Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 05.pdf/95

 74

Thc Green Bag.

presumably in possession of all the tricks of logic and graces of rhetoric of which a country practitioner can make use. Both the justice of the peace and the jury settled down convinced that they were to be spell bound with the beautiful figures and power ful arguments of the learned, advocate; and he was not inclined to disappoint them. In his address he said the defence knew very well that they had no case, and so the "Judge," instead of attending to his business personally as usual, had sent up his ignorant, clumsy clerk to let him see what a lawsuit was like. And such a thing, argued the counsel, was an insult to the gentlemen of the jury. The case, he said, was one in which the rule of damnum absquc injuria held throughout; and that dammim absque injuria was a statement which could be suc cessfully refuted by no man. In brief, there never had been, and possibly never would be again, a case in which damnum absqne injuria was more perfectly illustrated. So he rang the changes on his pet phrase, repeating it some twenty times, much to the liking of the jury, which nodded intelligently each time the sonorous words were uttered, and was much inclined to favor the college-bred lawyer. Then Rusticus Flebius had his innings. Timidly and yet winningly he began his tale to the jury. He admitted the charge against him that he was a plain, simple, honest man like themselves, and that again, like many of the jury, his opportunities for acquiring a polished education had been very meagre; and that therefore he would talk to them plainly and simply in the language of honest men and as man to man. He explained his presence by stating that the " Judge " was unexpectedly called away, and, believing that the plaintiff had no case anyhow, he had been asked to appear for the defendant. Now, while he had not spent many days in a schoolhouse and never had been to col lege, yet he had by chance learned "a little French " in some books he had been looking at. And his surprise and indignation were

boundless when he heard his opponent take advantage of his superior education and the jury's ignorance of the French language to insult them to their faces in a language they could not be expected to understand. "Now, gentlemen of the jury, he has kept up a constant cry of damnum absque injuria without attempting, for he did not dare, to tell you what those insulting words mean. By a lucky accident, gentlemen, I do know what he means, and will show you how basely he has insulted you. Take the first word, gentlemen, damnum. That is not so hard to translate from the French into English. Our word meaning the same thing is much like it. Gentlemen, I know, and the man, if he be a man, who said it knows full well, that dammtm means Damn! Now the last word, gentlemen, the word injuria, — that, too, is easily understood and remembered, though not so clear as the first. Injuria, gentlemen, in the language of honest men, means Jury. Now the other word, absque, is very hard to translate; but, gentlemen, I happen to know, and will tell you that it means Bad. And this cheeky cuss has been calling you a Damn Bad Jury all through this trial, and you did n't know it. He has taken a foul advantage of you and me alike, and now I ask that you show him that so far as he and his plaintiff are concerned, you are just the kind of a jury that he has called you." And it did. One of the prettiest cottages and the finest site in Ocean Grove, that eminently religious and strict camp-meeting resort along the Jersey coast, are owned and occu pied by a lawyer who is openly and profess edly an infidel. Singularly enough, this man's is the only property within the gates of the famous old watering-place which is held in fee simple; and singularly again he was one of the early purchasers and settlers. The remainder of the lots were conveyed as leaseholds. It seems that the lawyer was told, when about paying for his lots, that the camp-meeting association were just out of