Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/230

 Publ1shed Monthly, at $4.00 per Annum.

S1ngle Numbers, 50 Cents.

Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, Horace W. Fuller, 1$}4 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. The Editor will bf glad to receive contributions of articles of moderate length upon subjects of inter est to the profession; also anything in the way of legal antiquities or curiosities, facetia, anec dotes, etc. THE GREEN BAG. Montgomery, Ala., March 6, 1895. The Editor of the ''Green Bag," Boston, Mass. Dear S1r,— I have just read the story of the con demned blacksmith in the " Facetiae" printed in the current number of your paper. It recalls a story that was told here on a pettifog ging lawyer who was in the practice when I first came to the bar. The lawyer's name was Dalton Williams, and he was principally distinguished be cause he was never known to have a book, an office or the price of a meal, and nobody had ever seen him do any work. It seems that a valuable slave had been convicted of a capital offence, was sentenced to death, and the day of execution had come. In those days execu tions took place in public, and, as usual, a very large crowd had gathered to witness this one. While the crowd wxs waiting for the proceedings to commence one negro was heard to say to another : "I wonder what dem white folks want to hang dat nigger fur? Oat nigger is wuth eighteen hundred dollars of any man's money. Why doan't dey go and hang Mas' Dalt Williams? He ain't wuth nuthing to nobody." I don't vouch for the truth of the story, but it was told on "Mas' Dalt" with great effect and always had the effect of putting him to immediate flight, and of depriving him of the coveted drink which he was frequently trying to secure from any gathering of lawyers, basing his claims on his connection with the "profession." Yours most truly,

LEGAL ANTIQUITIES. "When I was Chancellor," says Lord Bacon, "I told Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador, that I would willingly forbear the honor to get rid of the burthen; that I had always a desire to lead a private life." Gondomar answered that

he would tell me a tale : " My lord, there was once an old rat that would needs leave the world; he acquainted the young rats that he would retire into his hole, and spend his days in solitude, and commanded them to respect his philosophical seclusion. They forbore two or three days; at last, one hardier than his fellows ventured in to see how he did; he entered and found him sitting in the midst of a rich Parmesan cheese!"

FACETS. Magistrate (to Witness). Why didn't you go to the help of the defendant in the fight? Witness. I didn't know which one of them was going to be the defendant.

Mr. Story, the sculptor, who began life as a lawyer, tells a good story which illustrates the fact that the emphasis which punctuates has as much to do with determining the sense of a sen tence as the meaning of the words. Once, when he was called upon to defend a woman accused of murdering her husband, he adduced as one of the proofs of her innocence the fact of her having attended him on his death bed, and said to him, when he was dying : "Good-bye, George!" The counsel for the plaintiff declared that ought rather to be taken as a proof of her guilt, and that the words she used were : " Good, by George!" A lawyer who makes a specialty of patent business, no matter just where his office is located, was called to the further West in a case involving a mortgage on a farm. The preliminary hearing was before an old-fashioned justice of the peace, who had no high regard for the ways of men from the city. At some point in the case the magis trate put in a few remarks, and the visiting lawyer 203

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