Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/68

 THE LIGHTER SIDE STAGE "law" may not be quite the most fearful and wonderful mystery in the whole universe, but it's near it — very near it. We were under the impression, at one time, that we ourselves knew something — just a little — about statutory and common law, but, after paying attention to the legal points of one or two plays, we found that we were mere children at it. We thought we would not be beaten and we determined to get to the bottom of Stage law, and to understand it; but, after some six months' effort, our brain (a singularly fine one) began to soften; and we abandoned the study, believing it would come cheaper, in the end, to offer a suitable reward to any one who would explain it to us. The reward has remained unclaimed to the present day and is still open. The only points of Stage "law" on which we are at all clear, are as follows : —That if a man dies without leaving a will, then all his property goes to the nearest vil lain. But if a man dies and leaves a will, then all his property goes to whoever can get posses sion of that will. That the accidental loss of the three and sixpenny copy of a marriage certificate annuls the marriage. That the evidence of one prejudiced witness, of shady antecedents, is quite sufficient to convict the most stainless and irreproachable gentleman of crimes for the committal of which he could have no possible motive. But that this evidence may be rebutted, years afterwards, and the conviction quashed without further trial, by the unsupported statement of the comic man. That if A forges B's name to a check, then the law of the land is that В shall be sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. That ten minutes' notice is all that is re quired to foreclose a mortgage. That all trials of criminal cases take place in the front parlor of the victim's house, the villain acting as counsel, judge, and jury rolled into one, a couple of policemen being told off to follow his instructions.

These are a few of the more salient features of Stage "law" so far as we have been able to grasp it up to the present; but, as fresh acts and clauses and modifications appear, to be introduced into each new play, we have abandoned all hope of ever being able to really comprehend the subject. JEROME K. JEROME, in "Stage Land." A NEW YORKER drawn for the jury to try Nan Patterson for murder declared that he had bias because he was defendant in a breach of promise case and could not, therefore, give any woman a fair trial. IN Chief Justice Marshall's time the Supreme Court of the United States lived apart from the rest of the world and dined together at a sort of mess, only once a year dining in public at the White House. Justice Story was once rallied on this aloofness, and explained it drolly: — "The fact is we justices take no part in the society of the place. We dine once a year with the President, and that is all. On other days we dine together and discuss at table the questions that are argued before us. We are great ascetics, and even deny ourselves wine except in wet weather." Here the justice paused, as if thinking this last statement placed too great a tax on hu man credulity, and then he added, slyly: — What I say about wine, sir, gives you our rule, but it does sometimes happen that the chief justice will say to me when the cloth is removed: ' Brother Story, step to the window and see if it does not look like rain.' And if I tell him that the sun is shining, Chief Justice Marshall will sometimes reply: 'All the better; for our jurisdiction extends over so large a territory that the doctrine of chances makes it certain that it must be raining somewhere.'" — Lancaster Law Review. "Your honor," observed Mr. Bailey, my unfortunate client —" "There the court is with you," gently inter rupted the judge, with a grim smile. And the future senator lost his case.