Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/516

 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 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. Editor the Green Bag. Mr. George H. Westley, in your June number, mentions " the very clever manner in which Por tia saved Antonio his pound of flesh." Shake speare was a great man, but if he was the little end of nothing of a lawyer, then " Your Disgusted Layman " is a Mansfield. Just think of a lawyer coming any such shallow wriggle as Portia's, to get a man off! If that dodge was tried before Judge , he would say " Oh Rats! " Send "a member of the Bar here " to try this case, and would hunt out " Public Policy " or some such club to knock Shylock out with. Perhaps he would give Judge 's " evasive answer " : "Well, Mr., that stuff is bald rot, and my opinion is that you know it." Then in your "Notes " on page 268, you say that Greenleaf wasn't apt on a joke. Well, if that was Mr. Greenleaf on Evidence, he could joke with a ven geance. Didn't the Green Bag itself tell the story of Mr. Greenleaf and the country justice? Those days lawyers used each to have his own pet squire, which squire always gave judgment for him (squires in our town do the same thing now). It happened once that Greenleaf and —somebody, perhaps Parsons — went out in the country, in a buggy to try a case before Parsons' squire. They had to adjourn over dinner time, and when the two got through with the squire, to Parsons' astonishment, the squire went against him. Coming home, Parsons said, " Greenleaf, how did that squire come to give that case against me? He never gave one against me be fore and this one was very plain for me." " Well, Parsons," replied Mr. Greenleaf, " while we were out for dinner, I told the squire that I was very much struck with his way of trying a case, and as

I had considerable business to try soon, I would like to have some of his blanks, and (raising up the cushion of the buggy) here they are at your service." Thunder! Not capable of a joke? What was Parsons' view on that point? Your Disgusted Layman.

LEGAL ANTIQUITIES.

Lord Coke says that the official reporters ceased about the end of the reign of Henry VII, and the reason he gives for it is sufficiently quaint : " So as about the end of the reign of Henry VII it was thought by the sages of the law, that at that time the reports of the law were suf ficient, wherefore it may seem unnecessary and unprofitable to have any more reports of the law."

FACETIÆ. "Have you fixed up my will?" said the sick man to Lawyer Quillins. "Yes."

"Everything as tight as you can make it?" "Entirely so." "Well, now, I want to ask you something — not professionally, but as a plain, every-day man. Who do you honestly think stands the best show for getting the property?"

Judge X, in a western city, often shows impatience at the ancient wit of prosy attorneys, and sternly represses any attempt to break the quiet of the court-room by exciting the laughter of the spectators. On one occasion after the perpetration of a particularly mouldy joke, which caused a general groan, his honor said : — "Mr. Smith, please remember you are address ing the court, and not the audience." "He probably thought your joke was old enough for the court to take judicial notice of," suggested the opposing lawyer. 473