Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/383

 350

Judge. — "I see by the records that you have been here before for treating your mother-in-law cruelly. Were you punished?" Prisoner (mournfully). — "Yes, your Honor, but not by the Court."

Half a century ago the Common Pleas Court sitting at Syracuse, New York, heard discussed the question whether a coffin was cabinet ware. A furniture dealer had given a note " payable in cabinet ware," and having quarreled with the holder of the note pending its maturity, finally tendered a coffin. Much testimony was given as to what was meant by " cabinet ware "; but the county judge finally decided that a coffin answered the description, on the plea that it was a lasting clothes press. Whereupon the victim of the cabinet maker shrouded himself in the gloom of a bill of costs.

The late Judge Amasa J. Parker of Albany was as waggish as he was learned. Having had a five days' trial of a breach of promise case, the jury disagreed and averred that a verdict was impossible. Said Judge Parker, "This is un fortunate; and I am sorry for the uncomfortable night you have passed; but I have a circuit term to hold in New York which cannot take longer than a fortnight, when I shall return to receive your verdict, if by that time you have reached one. Meanwhile I shall direct the Sheriff to make you as comfortable as circum stances will permit." The foreman stared at his fellows, and they glared at him : but the foreman, recovering his presence of mind, scurried up and down the row of double sixes, and in a few minutes announced a verdict for the defendant. But the fair plaintiff obtained from the appellate court a new trial, on the novel ground that the Judge had coerced the jury.

NOTES.

Recorder Goff of New York City declines to allow a recommendation to mercy by a jury to become matter of record, thus following an Eng lish custom; but in 1856, before one of his pre decessors, a jury recommended, with a verdict of guilty, that the convict receive the longest sen

tence. This was placed upon the record as showing the responsibility for it.

In a recent trial of an indictment against a fat-rendering establishment in Long Island City, a complaining witness on cross examination was asked how strong was the odor. He replied in a very decided tone, " So strong that it often stopped my clock." So a nuisance can become, as well as procrastination, a thief of time.

The following is one of the head-notes to the case of Barrow v. Richard, 8 Paige, 351 : —"A very highly colored description of the noxious ef fects of coal-dust, in a sworn bill in chancery, al though somewhat poetical, cannot be treated by the court as a mere poetic fiction, but upon de murrer to the bill, such coal-dust will be con sidered a real nuisance." "The Chancellor : ' The allegation in the bill on this subject, though it is a little poetical, can not be considered a mere poetical fiction; as it is sworn to by the complainant and is admitted by the demurrer. He there stated that large quantities of volatile and offensive dust and smut from the coal rise in the air, and are diffused by the wind, into the premises of the neighboring in habitants. And in spite of all their care, such coal-dust and smut not only settles upon their walks and their grassplats, but also on their frag rant plants and flowers, " beclouding the bright ness and beauty which a beneficent Creator has given to make them pleasant to the eye, and cheering to the heart of man." But what must be still more offensive to the ladies of the neigh borhood, " this filthy coal-dust settles upon their doorsteps, thresholds, and windows, and enters in to their dwellings, and into their carpets, their cups, their kneading-troughs, their beds, their bosoms, and their lungs; discoloring their linen and their otherwise stainless raiment and robes of beauty and comfort, defacing their furniture, and blackening, besmearing and injuring every object of utility, of beauty, and of taste." Making all due allowance for the colorivg which the pleader has given to this naturally dark picture, it is per fectly certain that this keeping of a coal-yard up on any of these lots is a business onensive to the neighboring inhabitants, according to the spirit and intent of these restrictive covenants."