Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/424

 Cfje #mn 38ag. 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, is# Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. The Editor will be 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. Asheville, N. C, August 6, 1896. Editor of

Dear Sir: In the August number of The Green Bag you quote the poet Tom Moore in regard to that legal paradox, " the greater the truth, the greater the libel." Permit me to call your attention to a reference of Robert Burns to the same subject. It is as follows : — "LINES ON STIRLING. Written on a window in Wingate's Inn there. Here Stuarts once in glory reigned, And laws for Scotia's weel ordained; But now unroofed their palace stands, Their sceptre's swayed by foreign hands. The Stuart's native race is gone! A race outlandish fills their throne — An idiot race, to honor lost : Who know them best despise them most."' Burns, who was then a zealous Jacobite, being reproved by a friend for the above lines, replied, " I shall reprove myself"; and immediately wrote the following lines on the same pane : — "THE REPROOF. Rash mortal, and slanderous poet, thy name Shall no longer appear in the records of fame; Dost not know that old Mansfield, who writes like the Bible, Says the more 'tis a truth, sir, the more 'tis a libel"? Truly, F. A. Sondley.

shine much brighter through crystal or amber, than if they be beheld naked; nor like to pictures that ever delight most when they are garnished and adorned with fresh and lively colours, and are much set out and graced by artificial shad ows."

FACETIÆ. Gaoler : " You will be released to-morrow. It is to be hoped I shall see you here again only as a better man." Prisoner : " Do they imprison you also on that account?" Judge (to the father, whose son stands at the bar, on account of repeated thefts) : "You should have warned your son!" Father : " I have done so. I have said to him repeatedly, ' Karl, be very cautious this time!'" Col. Polk, who was much in request at the bar in the mountain district in N. C, was so detained by other business that he did not reach one of his courts till late in the week. On his arrival a suitor in an important case waited on him to obtain his services, and naively remarked : " I have retained old Maj. N in the case to complicate the matter till you could get here." A short time since a Mr. Knott was tried for a violation of the law. The verdict was : " We find the defendant Knott guilty." The judge was at a loss whether to sentence him or not.

LEGAL ANTIQUITIES. In the preface to the Eighth Part of his Reports, Lord Coke says : " There are certain other cases now published by me, concerning some of the most abstruse, dark, and difficult points in the law, and yet very necessary to be known. And I have of purpose done these as plainly and clearly, and therewith as briefly, as I could. For the laws are not like to those things of nature, which

A Michigan justice of the peace was about to fine an attorney for contempt of court, when the contumacious limb of the law arose and said he would plead the statute of limitations. " Statute of limitations! " exclaimed the justice, " what has that to do with the matter?" "Because, sir, I have entertained the utmost contempt for this court for considerably more than six years." 389