Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/441

 490

One night, at Canton, E. H. Parker, the author of John Chinaman, heard in the middle of the night, a conversation on the roof of the house in which he was staying. By listening, he discovered that the kitchen maid was in the attic talking to some one on the roof. "Who is that you are talking to? " he asked. "It is only Tim, the thief, sir. It's all right, sir; he won't come again to-night." Mystified by this strange remark, he con sulted a Chinaman, who told him that the woman had been conversing with a common thief, who had come on the roof to rob the house. The maid had heard the thief on the roof, and went up to tell him that he must not try to rob the house, as the people were awake. "You see," said the Chinaman, " so long as you don't raise a cry when you detect a thief he will be reasonable with you. If you had given him in charge, it might have happened on some other night the thief's friends would have committed burglary with violence instead of mere thieving." "Dmyouse git anything?" whispered the bur glar on guard as his pal emerged from the window. "Naw, de bloke wot lives here is a lawyer," replied the other in disgust. "Dat's hard luck," replied the first; " did youse lose anyt'ing?" — Exchange. The Law Times quotes from Anecdotes of the Connaught Bar, published many years ago, the following extraordinary story of Sir Theobald Butler, better known as " Toby Butler," a Ro man Catholic leader on the Connaught Circuit of great eminence, who was appointed SolicitorGeneral for Ireland by James II.:— He was engaged in an important case which required all his acumen and legal knowledge to defend, and the attorney, fully alive to the im portance of keeping Sir Toby cool, absolutely insisted on his taking his corporal oath that he should not drink anything till the case was de cided. He made, accordingly, an affidavit to that effect, and kept it as follows : The cause came on; the trial proceeded; the opposite counsel made a masterly, luminous, and apparently powerful impression on the jury. Sir Toby got up, and he was cool — too cool; his courage was not up to the striking point, his hands trembled.

his tongue faltered — everything denoted feeble ness; whereupon he sent for a bottle of port and a roll, when, extracting a portion of the soft of the roll and filling up the hollow with liquor, he actually ate the bottle of wine, and, recovering his wonted power and ingenuity, he overthrew the adversary's argument and won the cause. Giuseppe Musolino, the famous Calabrian brigand, has recently been found guilty of mur der after a trial of nearly two months' duration. The young criminal, though little more than twenty-six years of age, can boast a career of crime rarely equalled and never surpassed by Italian brigands. For over two years Musolino has succeeded in evading an army estimated at nearly five hundred strong, composed of police and carbineers, who, notwithstanding the sub stantial reward of £9,oo offered by the Italian Government for his detection, were continually nonplussed by the adroitness of their quarry, assisted by the Calabrian peasants and moun taineers. His eventual capture was purely ac cidental, and was due to his having stumbled over a wire fence when he was taken prisoner by two carbineers, both of whom were totally ignorant of his identity. Musolino was the lead ing representative in Calabria of the " vendetta," a system so engrained in the minds of the poorer classes as to be regarded as the only legitimate form of social justice. Notwithstanding his numerous crimes, Musolino was to the last hon ored and respected by the Calabrian peasants, who were always ready to warn him by prear ranged signs of the approach of the police. He was arrested five years ago on a charge of at tempted murder and sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude; but, after a short detention, managed to escape by the help of some fellow convicts. Before he had been at large many months no fewer than seven of those who had given evidence against him had been either shot or stabbed. — Westminster Gazette. Mrs. Pettifogger (scandalized) — " Charles, I heard the other day that old Judge Barleykohrn said that he hadn't tasted water for twenty years. Do you suppose it is true?" Mr. P. — " Shouldn't wonder, my dear. You see, the old gentleman has an iron constitution, and he's probably afraid he'll rust it."