Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/470

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Published Monthly, at $4.00 per Annum.

Bag. 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 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. LEGAL ANTIQUITIES. The following law was passed in Virginia in 1662 : — "Whereas many babbling women slander and scandalize their neighbors, for which their poor husbands are often involved in chargeable and vexatious suits and costs in great damages. Be it enacted that in actions of slander occasioned by the wife, after judgment passed for the damages, the woman shall be punished by ducking; and if the slander be so enormous as to be adjudged at greater damages than five hundred pounds of to bacco, then the woman to suffer a ducking for each five hundred pounds of tobacco adjudged against her husband if he refuses to pay the to bacco." FACETIÆ. John Anthon — who lives in libraries between the covers of an old calfskin treatise labeled "Anthon's Nisi Prius " — was a gentleman of solemn visage, solemn mien and solemn address while at the bar. But he was known in a moment of im patience to be once funny. Opposed to a lawyer named Edmund J. Porter, he began his address to the jury by saying, " Now, gentlemen, I shall ask your aid to bottle up Porter"; who quickly responded, " If they do, I shall foam." When Rufus Choate was a new beginner, he had to defend a young man who was a Boston broker's clerk, charged with seduction of a rather mature maiden under promise of marriage. There appeared to be little defense, but, on the day of trial in Suffolk County, Choate, seeing how ex tremely youthful his client was in face and size, had him dressed in low shoest short trousers.

jacket, and wide rolling childish collar over a black ribbon, and sat him down inconspicuously in the court. The prosecutor had concluded his case, and had produced much evident impression on the jury against the accused, when Choate rose to open, and, beckoning to his client, placed him on a chair and said, " I open with an exhibition of the gay Lothario." The burst of laughter was only a preface to the verdict of acquittal that soon followed. The late Daniel Dougherty had been examin ing a hack-driver in a vehicular collision case, who was asked as to his speed in the driving enquired about, and he answered, " Very slow; between a stand and a walk." "What a curious and not understandable an swer," said the judge, poising a doubtful pen; when Dougherty said, " Is not a hackman's stand usually on the walk?" Two aged brothers named Wood were wit nesses against each other on a question of seeing an assault. One testified he was seventy-nine years old, and had never tasted intoxicating li quor; the other, two years younger, confessed to having been a hard drinker all his life; when Judge Baldwin, of the Connecticut Trial Court, turned to the jury and said, " Gentlemen, here is a question of dry wood and wet wood for you to split." NOTES. George Griffin, a famous Knickerbocker law yer, only once defended in a criminal court. His client, when arrested, was found to have, as the policeman testified, burglarious implements in his possession. One of the sitting Aldermen said, "I suppose a brace and bits." To which the offi cer nodding, Griffin, who knew nothing of crimi nal pharaphernalia, meekly observed, " The mere possession of horse furniture is not evidence of bad character." Some lawyers refer to an op433.