Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/102

 Ctje #reen BagPublished 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, 344 Tremont Building, 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, facelia, anec dotes, etc. FACETI,ffi. "Don't you want to be a Christian? " a Sundayschool teacher asked one of the members of her class. "No, ma'am," was the ready response. " My papa wants me to be a lawyer."

"Ah! " said the blustering lawyer, whose client had just been acquitted. " Now that it's all over, would you mind telling me how you reached your verdict?" "Certainly," replied the juryman. "We felt sure that if he had been guilty he wouldn't have hired you to defend him."

In a case before a green and newly-appointed Georgia justice, the jury couldn't arrive at a decision, and the bailiff reported as follows : "The jury is hung, yer honor." "Who hung 'em?" asked the justice, in an excited voice : " Who dares ter hang anybody without my say-so? Bring the culprits before me, an' I'll lynch 'em all by law!"

At a New England society dinner some years ago, Mark Twain had just finished a piquant address when Mr. Evarts arose, shoved both of his hands down into his trousers pockets, as was his habit, and laughingly remarked : " Doesn't it strike this company as a little unusual that a pro fessional humorist should be funny?" Mark Twain waited until the laughter excited by this sally had subsided, and then drawled out : "Doesn't it strike this company as a little unusual that a lawyer should have his hands in his own pockets?"

A certain eminent judge who was recently re-elected, when he was asked about the facility with which he turned from one case to another, replied " That he had learned that from what he saw at a baptism of colored people when he was a boy. The weather was very cold, so that to immerse the candidates they were obliged to cut away the ice. It befell that when one of the female converts was dipped back in the water, the cold made her squirm about, and in a mo ment she had slipped from the preacher's hands and was down the stream under the ice. The preacher, however, was not disconcerted. Look ing up with perfect calmness at the crowd on the bank, he said : ' Brethren, this sister hath de parted — hand me down another.'"

Mr. Justice Maule once went on circuit with Judge Coleridge in a part of the country where the high sheriff was a shy and modest man and very much alarmed at having to entertain his cynical lordship. Coming home in his coach with the two judges, he thought it his duty to make conversation for them. He observed that he hoped there would be better weather, as the moon had changed. " And are you such a fool, Mr. Jones, as to imagine that the moon has any effect on the weather?" said Maule. "Really, Brother Maule," said Coleridge, who was polite ness itself, " you are very hard upon our friend. For my part I think the moon has a considerable effect upon it." " Then," said Maule, " you are as great a fool as Jones is." After which, con versation in the sheriff's carriage languished.

Once, when Joseph H. Choate had on the rack a well-known manipulator of bankrupt rail way properties, he suddenly asked : " Were you interested in the trial of Dr. Briggs for heresy?" "No! " was the answer. Choate passed to other subjects; but the witness, as he left the stand, paused at Choate's seat, and remarked in an in 83