Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/517

 4»4

THE GREEN BAG

Marston on Judge Doe's Law. — Gen. Gilman Marston of Exeter, N. H., who has been the subject of many stories in the Herald, had no very exalted opinion of the law as it was sometimes expounded by the court. The late Chief Justice Charles Doe once ruled adversely upon a point that the general had made, -and Gen. Marston retaliated as follows : "Your Honor's law reminds me of the definition of law given by an old darky. He said: ' De law, my frens, am like a ground glass window. It may afford a little light to guide us trew de dark and uncertain ways of dis life, but de very devil hisself couldn't see trew it.' " — Boston Herald.

intimate friend, who dared complain of the finding. "Billy," said Judge Tuley, solemnly, " I took that evidence to Arkansas with me and studied it two weeks. Then I brought it home and spent ten days more on it. Then I said in my decision: "' So far as the evidence shows, the defen dant is an upright and honorable Christian gentleman.' "' So far as the evidence shows," " repeated the jurist, slowly and with emphasis. Then he leaned forward in his chair, placed a hand on the other's knee, and exclaimed, with an air of vindication: " But, Billy, I didn't say I believed it!" — Youth's Companion.

The " Donkey." — Prisoner accused of mur der alleged to have been committed between contending factions struggling for right of way; one party having arrived on donkey or small engine, and other from opposite direction on electric car. Prosecuting Attorney to Witness! — Describe to us, if you please, the distance between the donkey and the electric car at the time the first stone was thrown? Witness pointing to Judge! — Well if that fellow, was the donkey

A Hornless Cow. — In a certain country town in northern Minnesota is a young lawyer who is somewhat noted for the facility with which he will lead the unwatchful witness into making the most damaging and ofttimes ridiculous statements. His ability along this line was very happily illustrated in a recent case involving the ownership and possession of a certain muley cow which was alleged to have strayed from the plaintiff's premises. The plaintiff, an Irishman, was, during the course of the trial subjected to a very harassing cross-examination as to the identity of this same muley. The plaintiff lost the suit, and very naturally attributes such outcome to the trickery of defendant's attorney. But his view of the matter is best told in his own words: "Sure an Haley's lawyer was the very divil himself. I was on me guaard all the whiles,- an how he did the divil knows, but jist before he tould me I might come down from the staand, be the Houly Saints, if he didn't have me stretchin' me haands to me aarms' length, and explainin' to the jury how long the blissed cow's horns were."

On the Evidence. — Murray F. Tuley, who died on Christmas, after twenty-five years of continuous service as judge of the Circuit Court in Chicago, was noted for the strict impartiality with which he rendered decisions, even when his personal bias was strongly the other way. On one occasion, having heard a certain famous suit,, he found himself _ impelled to hand down a decision repugnant to his own inclination. "Do you mean you think the defendant was not at heart a swindler? " demanded an