Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 09.pdf/546

 Ctje PUBLISHED MONTHLY, AT $4.00 PER ANNUM.

SINGLE NUMHERS, 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 glati 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, faceticr, anec dotes, etc. FACETIÆ. "I HAVK been told, Coke," said Blackstone to the celebrated jurist, " that you are of royal de scent." "Bosh!" said Coke. "// Pooh! From what king, Judge?" "Old King Cole," replied Blackstone. "PERHAPS he isn't all he might be, but he stood by me in my hour of trial, and —" "What was he, an officer of the court?" THERE are some things of which it is just as well for the court to take "judicial notice." At a criminal trial a hotel proprietor, while giving evidence respecting a robbery that had taken place within his establishment, stated that the prisoner entered the bar and ordered a " nip of whisky." The judge, not considering it consistent with judicial dignity to affect to know what the modest measure alluded to was, asked : " What is a nip?" The witness smiled and remarked : " Eh, my lord, you once knew well what a ' nip ' was, for many a one have you called for and drunk in my hotel when you was an advocate." The bench did not further press for a definition of the term " nip." A BRITISH lawyer recalls a good story about Sir Richard Bethell in connection with a case that in duration and magnitude has probably never been surpassed. Somebody proposed to defer a minor point till " the day of judgment." " Won't that be a very busy day? " said Sir Richard. "ONCE I had as a client," said a Chicago law yer, " a farmer who brought suit against the city

for something or other. After it had progressed for a long time he came in one day and we traced for him the progress of the case, explaining among other things : "We filed a praecipe, and later on a declara tion, subsequently a demurrer. The demurrer being overruled, we filed a plea; the next time the case came up we got a judgment; then there was a motion for a new trial, but it was overruled, and judgment entered on the verdict; and finally it went from the Appellate to the Supreme Court, which affirmed the judgment. "' Dear me, dear me, what a wonderful thing the law is,' said my client. "' Well, the only thing now is to have a man damus.' "'A man-dam-us,' he repeated, with sudden impatience. ' When will we get to the d— us? ' and I replied : . " ' As soon as you get my bill.1" AN Irishman, charged before a magistrate with marrying six wives, was asked how he could be so hardened a villain. " Piase, your Honor," re plied the prisoner, " I was only trying to get a good one." OLD Judge Cloud of North Carolina was a rough diamond — not very much of a lawyer, but honest as the day, and with a fund of common sense. On the circuit it is customary for law yers and leading citizens to ask the judge and lawyers to tea. At Salisbury there was a leading citizen who was noted as a " manager," who on one occasion had extended an invitation of this kind. A lawyer passing the hotel saw the Judge still sitting on the porch, and, in surprise, asked, "Judge, are you not going to D—'s?" " Well," said the Judge, slowly, " not unless somebody ex plains the object of the meeting." LIVES of rich men oft remind us We can make our lives like theirs, And, departing, leave behind us Lawsuits to engage our heirs. SOS