Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/536

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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. The form of judgment for punishment by the pillory was that the " defendant should be set ' in ' and ' upon ' the pillory." We find parti culars of a case which occurred in 1759, when the under-sheriff of Middlesex was fined fifty pounds and imprisoned for two months by the Court of King's Bench, because, in executing the sentence upon Dr. Shebbeare, who had been convicted of a political libel, he had allowed him to be attended upon the platform by a servant in livery, holding an umbrella over his head, and to stand without having his neck and arms confined in the pillory. FACETIA. A certain lawyer in Nevada received a letter from a man who had been arrested for horse stealing, asking the lawyer how much he would charge to defend him. The lawyer answered and in a few days received a letter from the Vigi lance Committee saying " Sorry your letter came too late. However, we would be pleased to see you at the funeral." When John R. Peck first became an attorney for the Santa Fe, he went to a small town in western Kansas to argue a case that had been brought against the road for damages to several head of cattle that had been killed. The case was tried before a judge who was decidedly German. The witnesses were examined and the case gone through with, and the attorney for the pros ecution arose and made a strong plea for con viction. He waxed eloquent, and the judge paid close attention. "Are you troo?" asked the judge when the lawyer stopped.

"Yes, your honor." "You vins de case," said the judge. "But I want a chance to argue my side of the case," said Peck. "No, he vins," stoutly asserted the judge. But Peck commenced to talk, and gradually his talk led up to the case, and before the judge knew it Peck was arguing the defense. The judge listened closely, and when Peck had finished he said : — "You vins de case." "But you have already decided in my favor," said the other lawyer. "Dat's all right. I reverse my virst decision. Dis man vins," and the judge stuck to his last decision and Peck won his railroad case. A Polish Jew was arrested the other day, and, when taken to prison, his condition was so un cleanly that he was told by the corporal to strip and take a bath. "Vat, go in de water?" he asked. " Yes, take a bath; you need it. How long is it since you had a bath? " With his hands aligned upward, he answered : " I never vas arrested before." 1 am here, gentlemen," explained the pick pocket to his fellow-prisoners, " as the result of a moment of abstraction." "And I," said the incendiary, "because of an unfortunate habit of making light of things." "And I," chimed in the forger, "on account of a simple desire to make a name for myself." "And I," added the burglar, " through noth ing but taking advantage of an opening which offered in a large mercantile establishment in town." But here the warden separated them. A disappointed plaintiff once threw an egg at Vice-Chancellor Malines, the British jurist. The learned judge had the presence of mind to re mark that the egg must have been intended for 499