Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 11.pdf/638

 Ctje #rem 3Sag* 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. FACETIÆ. Here is a story which Baron Dowse, the cele brated Irish judge, once told in that exaggerated "brogue" which he loved to employ. "I was down in Cork, last month, holding assizes. On the first day, when the jury came in, the officrr of the court said : ' Gintlemen av the jury, ye'll take your accustomed places, if ye plaze.' And may I never laugh," said the baron, "if they didn't all walk into the dock." John Clerk, afterward known as Lord Eldin, was limping down High Street of Edinburgh one day, when he heard a young lady remark to her companion : — "That is the famous John Clerk, the lame lawyer." He turned round and said, with his " not un wonted coarseness " : — "You lie, ma'am! I am a lame man, but not a lame lawyer." The good advice of the Laird of Waterton, in Aberdeenshire, to a sheep-stealer, reads like a very practical joke. He had himself sent the man to jail; and in those days sheep-stealing was a capital offense. Visiting the prisoner the night before the trial, he asked him what he meant to do; to which the prisoner replied that he intended to confess, and to pray for mercy. "Confess! " said Waterton; " what, man, will ye confess and be hanged? Na! na! deny it to my face." He did so and was acquitted. "Well, James," said the parson, sympatheti cally to a discharged convict, " have you decided on what you want to do?"

"Yes, boss," replied the ex-crook. " Seeing as how I'm a pretty good mechanic, I thought I might open a bit of a shop." "A shop!" replied his benevolent friend. "What kind of a shop?" "A plumber's shop," said the burglar. "Oh! " exclaimed the minister, rising suddenly and picking up his hat, " I was under the impres sion that you wanted to reform."

In one of the remote counties of the Panhan dle of Texas two lawyers were trying a case be fore a justice of the peace. It was sixty miles as the crow flies to the nearest law book, and the attorneys differed, of course, as to the law upon the main issue in the case. They were trying the case without the intervention of a jury, and his honor, who conducted a gambling-house in con nection with his hotel, saloon, and livery stable, was in doubt as to what his decision ought to be. Finally Miller, the plaintiff's counsel, offered to bet Hoover, the defendant's attorney, $10 that he was right. Hoover did not happen to have that much of the circulating medium concealed about his person, and was naturally at a loss how to parry this forcible argument. The court waited a few moments for Hoover, and finally said : — "Well, Mr. Hoover, the court has waited long enough. Miller's proposition seems to be a fair one, and, since you don't put up, I will decide this case in favor of the plaintiff." "F1ght1ng Bob" Bowl1ng, whilom a Kansas City (Mo.) justice of the peace, one time made a ruling in the trial of a case that was not ac ceptable to the attorney on one side, and he demurred to the decision of his Honor. "Your Honor, you are overruling the Supreme Court," said the lawyer. "I do that every day, my friend; sit down," replied the justice, and his decision was re corded. 599