Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/71

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48 NOTES.

IN a recent case brought against the City of Boston for injuries received on the highway because of an accumulation of snow and ice, the plaintiff was a woman who had evidently been carefully coached by her attorney or had gathered from his discussion of the case two legal phrases which she used in the following way. She had a very rapid tongue, and it was impossible to stop her before she had done the damage. After her attorney had asked her the usual introductory questions, he stood one side with an air of satisfaction and said, " Now, Mrs., tell the jury just how this accident occurred." "Well, I left my house and walked down the street, using due care, and 1 stepped upon this ridge of hubbly ice and fell down." There was considerable amusement in court when Samuel H. Hudson, who appeared for the city, began the cross-examination, which, in part, was as follows : Q. Why do you say you were using " due care "? A. Because I was. Q. But why do you use that expression rather than " carefully " or " careful "? A. Because I am accustomed to use it. Q. You commonly use the expression " due care " in your family instead of the words " care ful " or " carefulness "? A. Yes; most always. Q. How about the word " hubbly "; when did you first hear that word used? A. 1 don't know. Q. Wasn't it in Mr. ' office? A. Why, I have used it all my life. Q. What do you mean when you say "hubbly "? A. Why, rough, of course. Q. And do you use that word in your family when you mean " rough "? A. Yes; most always. Q. So you mean to give the jury to under stand that when you speak to your children, you use the expressions " due care " and "hubbly " instead of " careful " and " rough "? A. Yes, certainly. Q. And I suppose when the children start for school, you say, " Now, children, use due care and do not play with any hubbly children."

The laughter in the court prevented an answer, and Mr. Hudson did not insist on the same when the presiding justice ordered him to proceed with the examination. IN Scotland, says The Law Times, the body of a traitor must still be divided into four quarters, and, so divided, disposed of as the reigning sovereign should think fit. Before the act of 1814 the sentence upon traitors was (as described in the preamble to the Act) " that they be hanged by the neck, but not until they are dead, but that they should be taken down again, and that when they are yet alive their bowels should be taken out and burnt before their faces, and that afterwards their heads should be severed from their bodies," etc. The quartering would seem to have been so essential a part of a sentence that if it was omitted the sentence was wholly bad, and the offender es caped all punishment. . . . The statute 5 Eliz. c. 9, as printed in the second edition of the Statutes Revised, still punishes subornation of perjury, in default of fine paid, with half a year's imprison ment and an hour's pillory, while the perjurer himself in similar default is punished not only by the pillory, but by having both his ears nailed thereto, either without any express limit of time, or with a limit difficult to discover; and the wellknown Lord's Day Act of Charles II condemns offenders against it, in default of a 5^. fine, to be "sett publicly in the stocks by the space of two houres." IN 1809 a temperance society in New York passed a rule that any member getting drunk on any day other than Fourth of July and other legal holidays should be fined twenty-five cents. The members were denounced in the ensuing excitement caused by this radical step, as " tem perance cranks," " fanatics," and in several in stances their barns were burned, and their horses hamstrung. In 1812, the Methodist Church (as a denomination) took the advanced step of forbidding its ministers to engage in the liquor traffic. LORD CAMPBELL relates the following anec dote of Lord Eldon on his ascent to the Bench in July, 1799, as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, when he was likewise elevated to the