Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/200

 Rh consisting of soup, beef, chicken, artichokes, fruit and several other delicacies, including a bottle of old burgundy and the finest mocha. Marmontel perceived that he had been too quick; the first repast was for his servant, the second for the master only. One can easily understand that sometimes a writer provoked arrest, as it involved no particular hardship and was an excellent advertisement. Thus Morellet confesses that he had himself sentenced in order to become celebrated. " He counted on six months, and settled himself in prison with a library of 600 volumes and great plans for work. At the end of six weeks he was free, and all the salons were open to him. His good fortune passed all expectation."

Half a guinea is left under an old charity at Terrington, Norfolk, for an annual sermon. Last year, says the London " Christian World," no body went to hear it, and the vicar took the sermon home unpreached. The trustees refused thereon to pay him the half-guinea. This year the sermon was duly preached, but the trustees still held back the half-guinea, professing fear lest, the vicar himself being a trustee, the pay ment might be illegal. The vicar sued for a guinea, both for last year's sermon and this, in the King's Lynn County Court, and the judge ordered the money to be paid. He only allowed half a guinea costs, however, on the ground that the vicar ought to have preached last year, whether there was anybody to hear the sermon or not. It is suggested that half a crown should be expended in hiring a congregation.

The death of Sir Charles Edward Pollock recalls the remarkable history of a family which illustrates the democratic conditions of official life in England. Sir Charles was the son of the late Sir Frederic Pollock, lord chief baron of the exchequer, and Sir Frederic was the son of a saddler. This West End saddler had three sons who rose to eminence — the eldest, the chief baron, already referred to; the second, Field Marshal Pollock, the hero of Cabul; and the third son, who was knighted, was the chief justice in Bombay. There are probably more baronets and knights and men of mark in the

177

Pollock family, all descended from the saddler, than in any other plebeian family in Great Britain. "There is nothing like leather." It is a case somewhat analogous to the family of Lord Eldon.

The legal authorities of a village in Green county, Oklahoma Territory, have returned to primitive precedents in caring for their juries. They have a court house, but in it there is not a room into which a jury can retire for consulta tion, and therefore the sheriff escorts the jurors from the court house into an adjoining vacant pasture ground, groups them therein, retires to a short distance in order not to listen to their deliberations, and when they shout the word "agreed" to him again assumes control of the jurors and escorts them back to the court room. An usher armed with a shot gun is stationed near to the jury group to prevent outside inter ference with its integrity of consultation. The foregoing method is known in the locality as "pasturing a jury."

CURRENT EVENTS. By a curious coincidence the number of lives lost at sea during 1897 in British merchant ships is re turned as exactly 1,897.

Land in the City of London is worth over ^2,000,000 an acre. The railways of the world give employment to something like 6,000,000 persons.

French shipping is slowly but steadily declining. All the subsidies and premiums paid to shipowners and shipbuilders seem valueless in preventing this decline, which is as difficult to account for as the disappearance of the Dutch flag from the seas during the last century, and the extinction of the famous American sailors. In 1860 there were still 500 can didates for examination for master's mates, in 1890 only 125. Fewer French ships pass through the Suez canal than German, Italian and even Dutch. The Dutch shipping in fact, shows renewed activity.

An English statistician has figured out that in the year 2301 there will be no further use for insane