Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/72

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"Do you expect to get a jury?" asked one lawyer. "I don't know," answered the other. "It's pretty hard to find a man with intelligence enough to answer our questions who hasn't read the newspapers and formed some opinion about the case." THF. late Lord Esher tried to console a certain lady litigant whose case he could not take by say ing that the case would be tried by a well-known judge without a jury. " He's a splendid lawyer, you know, and will try your case very nicely." "Oh, yes, my lord," the lady answered. "Mr. Justice is a very good lawyer, but my case requires so much common sense." IN a case of an assault by a husband on his wife, the injured woman was reluctant to prose cute and give her evidence. " I'll lave him to God, me lord," she cried. " Oh, dear, no," said the judge; " it's far too serious a matter for that."

MR. C. : They call him a one-horse judge. MR. Y. : How did he get that name, do you suppose? imagine. MR.-C. : Because he's such a weak charger, I —•—•—NOTES.

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UNDER the title, " Luccheni Redivivus," the London " Lancet " gives some interesting psycho logical data which have been obtained since the imprisonment of Luccheni, the assassin of the Aus trian Empress. Twice since his trial and con viction he has attempted suicide. Within the last few days (May 13) his moral condition has

undergone a change confirmatory in a significant degree of the diagnosis which found vanity or megalomania at the root of his crime. The cantonal juge d'instruction, in an attempt to as certain, if possible, his associates in the crime, visited him in his cell, and approached the subject with what seemed to himself due dexterity and caution. At once the previously downcast and abject creature brightened up, his eyes spark ling with gratified self-importance. " I giornali riparlano di me (So the journals are talking of me again)? " he exclaimed interrogatively. The judge disclosed the object of his visit. Luccheni thereupon dallied with his interlocutor, smiling at his reminiscences of the crime, assuming airs of reticence, even indulging in self-contradiction to tease if not torment his judicial antagonist. It was learned, however, that in the preliminaries leading up to the assassination he really had ac complices; beyond this, nothing new was elicited from him. The point of chief importance, how ever, to be observed in this account is the large part which vanity and a desire for the widespread public attention which such crimes bring about plays in reconciling the criminal to his fate, and even leading to the commission of crime in cases where the mental balance is very unstable. Hence this class of criminals should always be tried and punished with as little publicity as possible, not only because this policy deprives the individual of a show, with himself as the center, but also be cause every such public trial is liable to lead to the commission of similar crimes by other men tally unsound degenerates, who are sure to attend such spectacles whenever it is possible. A WASHINGTON, D. C., police court had occa sion recently to pass upon the very momentous question whether the proprietor of a monkey can be compelled to furnish it with shoes. On the complaint of some benevolent idiot, Pietro Florello, by profession a hand-organist, was hauled into the temple of justice to answer a charge of 53