Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 11.pdf/570

 Ctje #mn Bag. Publ1shed Monthly, at $4.00 per Annum.

S1ngle 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 reeeive eontributions of artieles of moderate length upon subjeets of inter est to the profession; also anything in the way of legal antiquities or euriosities, faeetia, anee dotes, ete. FACETI/E. An Irish counsel, having lost a case which had been tried before three judges, one of whom was esteemed a very able lawyer, and the other two but indifferent, some of the other counsel chaffed him a good deal. " Well now," says he, " who the devil could help it when thpre were a hundred judges on the bench?" "A hundred," said a bystander, "there were but three." "By St. Patrick," replied the counsel, " there was one and two ciphers." The remark that many of our successful lawyers commenced life as preachers was gracefully eor rected by another lawyer who begged to state that he began life as an infant.

"Are you married?" asked a magistrate in the Dublin police court of a man charged with com mitting an assault on another man. " No, your worship," replied the man in the dock. "That's a good thing for your wife," said the magistrate.

The following is a copy of a letter written by a Scotchman in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, in answer to a demand for the payment of $2.56, the price of vegetables sold : — Mr. , I gettin your littir few moments ago if my wife os u 1 cent you can talk to himself I dont know nothing a Bill and I will never pay her to you and if I will got hold of you I will tore you from together you curse you till my wife he comes back to me I am goin to swore I nivir saw frutes or vegetabless in hous for year back and more and I am nivir goin to pay her to you 256 dollars till my wife he comes back. I will go to shail if

you will pay my feed and no man can took me to shale to make me pay my wife's bills unless he come home perhaps you are takin advantage at me whin you know the woman's away but you better be get a move on now I am redy to go to shale now I will never pay her to you so come on now you devil come if I will met you I will broke your faces. P.S. There is 1 more John McDougall here mabe his you man try her.

The lawyer asked the witness if the incident previously alluded to wasn't a miracle, and the witness said he didn't know what a miracle was. "Oh, come! " said the attorney. " Supposing you were looking out of a window in the twentieth story of a building, and should fall out and should not be injured. What would you call that?" "An accident," was the stolid reply. "Yes, yes; but what else would you call it? Well, suppose that you were doing the same thing the next day; suppose you looked out of the twentieth story window and fell out, and again should find yourself not injured, now, what would you call that?" "A coincidence," said the witness. "Oh, come, now," the lawyer began again. "I want you to understand what a miracle is, and I'm sure you do. Now, just suppose that on the third day you were looking out of the twen tieth story window and fell out, and struck your head on the pavement twenty stories below and were not in the least injured. Come, now, what would you call it?" "Three times?" said the witness, rousing a little from his apathy. "Well, I'd call that a habit." And the lawyer gave it up.

The present Lord Chancellor of England was cross-examining a shrewd bucolic witness some years ago, who rather " had " him. 533