Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 16.pdf/605

 552

about time you were calling Billy Brown again, Major? What do you want with him, anyhow?" "If your Honor, please," replied the Major striving hard to be both stately and steady, "the miserable scoundrel promised to bring me a quart of whiskey here today, and he hasn't done it. He ought to be indicted for perjury." It is needless to relate that court was forthwith adjourned. GILES Jackson, the celebrated negro law yer of Richmond, in defending one of his cli ents in the Police Court, began to read from the Code. The Police Justice seemed to suspect that Mr. Jackson was reading some thing which was not there, and interrupted the lawyer, saying, "Mr. Jackson, I never heard of any such law as that.'' "Well/' said the lawyer, "is you -'gwine to hold my client responsible for the ignorance of this court?"— Virginia Lazv Register. JUDGE. — "You are a freeholder?" Prospective Juryman.—"Yes, sir.'' Judge.—"Married or single?" P. J.—"Married three years ago last month." Judge.—"Have you formed or expressed any opinion?" P. J.—"Not for three years past."—The New Jersey Law Journal. MR. Justice Bingham's latest part is that of champion of the English language against the American invader (remarks the London Daily Chronicle). Reproving counsel for using "combine" as a noun, he maintained that the good English word "combination" was preferable to that Americanism. It i« quite a new Americanism, too, as the judge did not add. The Century Dictionary can trace no public use of it earlier than the trial of a New York alderman for bribery in 1886. Dr. Murray's research, however, has unearth ed the premature employment of "combine'' as a noun in our own country as early as 1610, when one Folkingham used it in the sense of

"combination" or "plot." The use is so familiar now that we can understand the in genious theory of the American tourist in Switzerland, to whom the Grand Combinwas pointed out. He guessed that Mr. Pierpont Morgan must have bought and named that mighty mountain. AT the banquet of the Illinois Manufactur ers' Association recently, Mr. William C. Brown, discussed our great railroad growth. . . . The speaker recalled the vigorous op position to the building of the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi river at Rock Island, which was completed in April, 1856. A citizen of St. Louis filed a bill in the Dis trict Court against the bridge company, de claring that the bridge was a "nuisance and an obstruction to navigation," and praying that it be abated and removed. The court adjudged the bridge a nuisance and ordered it removed before the first day of October, 1860. The decision was finally reversed, however, by the Supreme Court. In the trial of this issue, Abraham Lincoln was one of the counsel for the bridge com pany, and in closing his eloquent appeal for his client he ventured the prediction that the time would come in the growth an develop ment of the great West when "the number of passengers crossing the river would equal and perhaps exceed those traveling up and down the river in boats."—American Indus tries. JUSTICE Barrett, sitting in Trial Term of the Supreme Court the other day, was pass ing the excuses offered by talesmen whc wished to escape jury duty, when the clerk handed up an affidavit on which the name and excuse had been filled in on the printed form with the following result: "John Smith personally appeared before me and made affidavit that he died on June 16." "That's curious," remarked the clerk "Not more curious," remarked the Judge dryly, than that I have to indorse it 'Ex cused.'"—Xew York Times