Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/350

 Ctje #reen Bag. 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, 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, facetia, anec dotes, etc. LEGAL ANTIQUITIES. From 1704 to 17 18 (in Maryland) several ferocious acts were passed against Catholics. A reward of ^100 was offered to any informer who should " apprehend and take " a priest and convict him of saying mass, or performing any of a priest's duties; and the penalty for the priest so convicted was perpetual imprisonment. Any Catholic found guilty of keeping a school, or taking youth to educate, was to spend the rest of his life in prison. Any person sending his child abroad to be educated as a Catholic was to be fined ^100. No Catholic could become a purchaser of real estate. Certain impossible test oaths were to be administered to every Papist youth within six months after his attaining majority, and if he should refuse to take them he was to be declared incapable of inheriting land, and his nearest kin of Protestant faith could supplant him. The children of a Protestant father might be forcibly taken away from their widowed mother and placed in charge of Protestant guardians. When extra taxes were levied for emergencies, Catholics were assessed at double rates. FACETIÆ. It is narrated of a certain gentleman of Celtic extraction, who holds the honorable office of trial justice in the State of Maine, that On one occasion his own son was hauled before him on a charge of drunkenness and disorderly conduct. His honor listened gravely to the evidence, which established a very clear case against the young man, and said : " The court will now rinder sintince. You are foined wan cint and costs. The court will remit the costs, and you go home and thank God that your father is the judge."

A man, charged with bigamy was once brought before Judge Gary of Illinois. The accused had lived two years with the second woman, and he concluded to plead guilty on the understanding with the States attorney that his sentence would divorce him from No. 2. When he stood before Judge Gary, the little man looked over his desk, and asked in a voice of kindness. "You fully understand what the plea of guilty means?" "Yes, your Honor." "And do you understand if you so plead it will be my duty to send you to the penitentiary? Do you understand that?" "Yes, your Honor. Anything to get free." The judge looked at the man for a moment, and then said in his inimitable manner : "I suppose there are some things beside which prison would be a relief. Any relative or friend of the defendant in court?" A woman in black stood up on a bench, and said in a voice which sounded like a rip of cam bric : — "I am his second wife, Judge." Judge Gary replied immediately, with no change in his voice or face, "Some things beside which prison would be a relief. You ought to be willing to take three years." The prisoner nodded an assent. Judge Gary looked over at the woman in black. He seemed to read her in a second. He turned to the man who had pleaded guilty, and said : — "I will give you one year. You seem to have had the other two before they arrested you."

NOTES Within a very recent period a petition, numer ously signed, has been presented to the French Chamber of Deputies asking that a special tax on bachelors be established in France, and re calls the fact that the French revolutionary Con vention of 1789, and some of the old republics, 3? 1