Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/108

 Clje #reen Bag. Published Monthly, at $4.00 per Annum.

Single Numbers, 50 Cents.

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 receh'e 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. Editor of the Green Bag : — Sir: — Your " Disgusted Layman " was certain, as soon as he saw that there was litigation as to whether the owner, or the tenant of a farm, owned the aerolite which fell on it, that a guessing school would be nowheres beside the. decision on that point, and on looking up the case (86th Iowa Reports, page 71) found he was exactly correct. Upon applying his lay wisdom to the case, the arguments, the cited authorities, and the decision, he finds that each side exactly balances the other, and therefore that flipping up a copper would be the most satisfactory determination of the matter. However, there is one ancient principle over looked by the Supreme Court of Iowa that should have determined the decision in favor of the ten ant and not the owner, as the Court decided. "The boys " have a principle of their " Common Law " running " Losers seekers, finders keepers," and that is always upheld among the boys (when the finder is the bigger boy). However, to be serious, there is a most charm ing bit of manly frankness in the conclusion of the decision, wherein the Court says it don't know whether it is right or not, but it guesses it is, —an honest admission of the insufficiency of human acumen to grapple with every subject under the sun that is refreshing. Your Disgusted Layman.

LEGAL ANTIQUITIES. The title Cancellarius or Chancellor, according to the opinion of some of our older writers, arose in the following manner. The Referendarius (or

Referee) and his clerks being besieged by people wishing on divers grounds for the king's inter ference either in civil or criminal matters, for the rehearing of causes in the one case, and for the obtaining of pardons or the releasing of penalties in the other, were separated from the suitors, like the officials in a Basilica or Roman law court, by an open grille or lattice. This lattice-work was formed by laths called cancelli, or little bars, and the clerks and others who sat behind the lattice and took in the plaints were then called the clerks of the Cancelli or Chancery. When the name of Chancellor was actually given to this officer seems to be subject to some doubt. The first occasion upon which the name is definitely ear-marked as attached to the office is during the period of the Confessor.

FACETIÆ. What crime involves the least risk? A safe burglary.

Why are oysters poor lawyers? Because they lose all their cases as soon as they come to the bar.

At a western law-school, a reformed ScotchPresbyterian preacher — reformed, that is, from theology to law — was asked to define " Embrac ery." He somewhat astonished the professor and the class by answering that it was " a species of assault on a woman."

A Philadelphia baker who kept no books, offered a chalk tally of loaves furnished a cus tomer as proof in a suit. The attorney for the defendant jocosely asked if the evidence was of fered under the lex talionis. To this the counsel for the plaintiff responded that he only offered the tally, the onus was on the defendant to prove its invalidity. 89