Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 11.pdf/62

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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. 7he 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. LEGAL ANTIQUITIES. Punishment in effigy was legally practised in France and with great solemnity up till the time of the first revolution. If the man condemned escaped, a dummy was put in his cell and the entire routine of the law allowed to take its course. The warrant was read to it, and on the day ap pointed it was conducted to the scaffold in the presence of all the legal functionaries and with all the circumstance of the law. Sometimes the same person was executed in effigy simultaneous ly in several cities, but that did not exempt him from actual punishment should he be afterwards caught. FACETIÆ. "What! Do you mean to contradict your self?" began peppery little old Naggem, the law yer for the plaintiff, when it came his turn to have a "go" at the defendant himself upon the wit ness-stand. "After stating, on direct examina tion by my brother, that the plumbers worked three whole days at your house, do you mean to turn round here and say they didn't?" "But I didn't state that they worked three days at my house." "Yes, you did!" "No, I didn't!" "What did you say, then?" "I said they were there three days." A case was being tried in court, and the par ticular question at issue was the number of per sons present when a certain event occurred. An honest but simple-minded German was in the witness-box. He had never taken an oath before, and was not a little disconcerted. The lawyer who con

ducted the cross-examination saw his oppor tunity, and badgered him with questions, after the manner of his kind. "How many did you say there were present?" he shouted, bringing his fist down upon the table as though the fate of empires trembled in the balance. "Veil," meekly answered the witness, " off course I gould not chust say, but I dinks dere vas betveen six and sefen." "Tell the jury what you mean by that!" roared the lawyer. " How could there be be tween six and seven? Were there six or were there seven?" "Veil," answered the witness, "maybe I vas wrong. There vas more as six, but dere vas not so much as sefen. One vas a fery leetle boy."

NOTES. Lanc1an1, the famous Roman archaeologist, has shown that in the Rome of the Caesars trouble was experienced with high buildings. A law was passed restricting the height of fronts to 60 feet. In order to evade it, builders adopted the prac tise of carrying up the rear portion several stories more. Other laws bearing on the heights of buildings were passed in olden times. There was a tendency to diminish the height of stories as the buildings increased in size, and a height of 130 feet was probably attained. It is believed that the ceilings were so low that a man could not stand upright in the rooms. Hekr Wolff, special correspondent of "Tageblatt," having an idle day somewhere between Kiao-chon and Tsing-tau, went out in quest of adventures with his dog, Schuster, and his clerk. Arriving at a court house, he found a mandarin preparing to try thirteen Chinese charged with murdering German missionaries. Waving a piece of paper, which he declared was his war rant, he promptly took the highest seat, ordered 45