Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/572

 Wit and Wisdom of Chief Justice Logan E. Bleckley. "This shows that jurors are to be driven upon the prisoner in single file, and not by platoons. He is not to be confused by looking upon a multitude of faces at once, but is allowed to scan each countenance separately. He is not to be thrown into alarm by too strong an exhibition of force. He takes his jurors one by one, and wrestles with them single handed. . . . There is no reading in the books of a regular march of the jurors upon the prisoner, and of his having to welcome or repel more than one at a time." — Williams v. State, 6oth Ga. 372. "The true law, everywhere, and at all times, delighteth in the payment of just debts. Blessed is the man that pays. The practice of paying promptly, and to the last cent, tends to the cultivation of one of the most excellent traits of human character. If debtors were guided by their own true interest, on an enlarged scale, they would be even more clamorous to pay than creditors are to receive. Tender would be more frequent than calls for money. Debt is the source of much unhappiness. The best possible thing to be done with a debt is to pay it." — Roberts v. Tift, 6othGa. 571. "In taking a wife a man does not put himself under an overseer. He is not a subordinate in his own family, but the head of it. ... A sub jugated husband is a less pleasing and less ener getic member of society, than one who keeps his true place, yet knows how to temper authority with affection." — Braswell v. Suber, 61st Ga. 399" The low tone of the court in ruling out testi mony, was not a matter to be passed over by counsel at the time without remark, and after wards brought up as cause for a new trial. Be sides, suppose a tone in the superior court to have a wrong pitch, how are we to review it? We are not sure that mere sound is amenable to a writ of error. Perhaps, with the aid of score and scale, as in music, it might be brought before us and take its chances for reversal or affirmance." — Wheatley v. West, 61st Ga. 407. "Mere evidence is food unassimilated; a ver dict or finding is the tissue into which it is con verted by assimilation." — Schley v. Schofield, 6 1st Ga. 531. "The trustee had no direct interest in favor of upholding the mortgage, and it is plain that he had no inclination to uphold it. He was a de

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fendant in sympathy with the complainants — a Greek in the Trojan camp." — Colesbury v. Dart, 61st Ga. 626. "The decree went against him; and by him all who hold, or may hold under him thereafter were represented. In him they fell. He, their head, was condemned, and they in him were con demned also. He was the Adam of their race. They are lost." — Gunn v. Wades, 62d Ga. 22. "Unknown quantities are manageable in alge braic operations, but hardly so in forensic pro ceedings. No court can safely administer a secret. But a medical secret of all others is the least amenable to juridical administration. To make drugs by concealed methods or from unde clared materials, for dissemination among the people, is a business of great responsibility, affecting more or less the public health; and for a court to engage in it, by a receiver or other wise, has the appearance of being rash. Perhaps, as a means of satisfying a final decree in a cause, a court of chancery might do it after taking com petent medical advice; but before decree, or without such advice, the circumstances would have to be very extraordinary to justify it." — Merrell v. Pemberton, 62d Ga. 34. "Judgments, whether against the state or against individuals, do not yield to a change of counsel or legal advisers. The most eminent professional skill on earth cannot raise the dead to life by a motion to amend. This case was dead when the present attorney-general was called to treat it, and his genius and learning can never reanimate its dry bones. He may well rest from his labors so far as it is concerned." — Goldsmith, Compt. v. Ga. Railroad, 62d Ga. 545. "This is an unsightly literary blemish, but not a grave legal infirmity. In school the composi tion would not pass, but it may be tolerated in the court-house. The meaning is clear, though the verbal inaccuracy is glaring." — Dickson v. State, 62d Ga. 589. "In a justice court, local government is realized in its last analysis. This tribunal is our primary — most rudimentary organ of home rule. It is the ne plus ultra of judicial simplicity. An action in it is not by petition or declaration, but by summons; and the summons may be a very scanty document. It seems designed merely to put the defendant in that state of mind in which a man a little roused and irritated exclaims,