Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/658

 provision of the necessary ships Editorial and as to ar- Department. ranging for the herring sale at Yarmouth,609 and The New York Sun relates the following

stories of the late William F. Howe, the cele brated New York criminal lawyer : Several years ago he was held up by two foot pads on a dark night. While one of the men was going through his pockets Mr. Howe ex claimed : "Dickey the Brute, I didn't think this of you after all I have done for you." The man ad dressed peered into the lawyer's face and ex claimed, " Why, you're Howe the lawyer." The fellow turned to his companion and said, "Let him go, Jack; you will want 'him to lie for you some day as hard as he did for me when he got me off twenty years sure." Mr. Howe, with a smile on his face, recently told what he said was the greatest compliment he had ever had paid to him by a client. He said that a few weeks after he had secured the acquittal of a man on a charge of burglary, the man sent for him, telling him he was once more in the Tombs Prison. "1 went to see him," said Mr. Howe, "and asked him what he was doing in jail again, after promising me he would never commit another crime [Mr. Howe smiled as he said ' commit another crime ']. The man said : "Well, you see, Mr. Howe, I enjoyed your speech so much last time, and it did me so much damned good to see you knock out that lying District Attorney, that 1 just couldn't keep my word to you." The recent meeting of the Court of Brother hood and Guestling, carries the mind back through long years of stress to periods when the Cinque Ports were most essential portions of the national scheme for self-defence. In recent years statutory powers have largely cur tailed the judicial duties once belonging to this ancient corporation; but the Court of Brother hood and Guestling still remains in a somewhat nebulous form, the object of its existence having practically ceased to have any being. The very title of this once important court indicates to those who are interested in ancient constitutional arrangements the vital distinctions subsisting between the five ports and two ancient towns and their so-called " limbs." The Brotherhood was a conference of these seven towns as to the

for other such purposes. The Guestling was rather a wider meeting, at which not merely the Brotherhood, but deputies from the other asso ciated towns were present for the discussion of subjects of common interest to them all. The speaker at these meetings is the head officer of the town which in any given year happens to be the one from which, in orderly succession, the same has to be chosen. — The Law Times. ' It is told of the late Senator Matt Carpenter that one day while chatting with friends in a committee-room the conversation turned on the relative merits of religious sects. Nearly every member of the party belonged to some church, and there had been an animated discussion, Senator Carpenter pacing up and down, listen ing intently enough, but saying not a word. "What church do you belong to, Carpenter?" asked one. "I don't belong to any." "Why don't you join one?" "I don't want to. None exactly suits my views." "What one would you join, if you were to feel forced to a choice?" "The Catholic, by all means." "And why the Catholic?" "Because they have a purgatory, and that's a motion for a new trial." — The Omaha Bee. „ _ To the question, "What is fair criticism?" few stranger answers have been given than the verdict of the jury in the case of " McQuire V. the Western Morning News" decided in the King's Bench Division before Mr. Justice Ridley on Monday. The Western Morning News pub lished a criticism on a play which was recently performed at Plymouth. The critic pronounced the play to be bad. It was described as " non sense, of a not very humorous character; " it "would be very much improved had it a sub stantial plot," and if a good deal of the "sorry stuff " were taken out of it; the singers were said, with one exception, to have no voices, and some of the songs were characterised as " com mon, not to say vulgar." The plaintiff com plained that such criticism was libellous, and that in consequence of its publication his play, with which he had been touring the provinces