Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/82

 THE LIGHTER SIDE The lazy lawyer stared at him in amaze ment. "See here, Grover Cleveland," he said, indignantly, " I want you to understand that you and your old books can go to thunder. You know very well that I don't read law. I practice entirely by ear." Judicial Humor. — The reports of law cases have recently been so liberally punctuated with judicial witticisms, followed by " laugh ter " or " loud laughter," that one cannot resist the conclusion that some of our judges have missed their vocation, and that they might have made equally large incomes in. a very different calling. Yet much of this humor which proves so side-splitting in the rather dreary atmosphere of a court of law seems rather poor stuff when read in the cold medium of print; and one seldom nowadays encounters anything half so funny as some of the sayings of judges of past generations, says Tit-Bits. Chief Baron O'Grady was, for instance, a humorist of the first water, as the following stories will prove. One day a brother judge, who owed his promotion rather to interest than to brains, was boasting to O'Grady of the summary way in which he disposed of matters in his court. "I say to the fellows who are bothering me with foolish arguments that there's no use in wasting my time and their breath, for that all their talk only just goes in at one ear and out at the other." "And no wonder," quietly answered O'Grady, " seeing that there's so little in between to stop it!" On another occasion, when a legal friend was taking the chief baron over his house and showing with pride a very secluded study which he had had built, where he could be absolutely free from any disturbance:. "Capital!" exclaimed O'Grady, in admira tion. " You surely can, my dear fellow, read and study here from morning till night and no human being be one bit the wiser." A very smart retort is credited to Lord Mansfield, an old-time judge. One day a counsel, more famed for his rudeness than for his legal knowledge, was arguing before him a case which involved a question of manorial custom.

"Let me illustrate my point, my lord," he said, " by an example. Now, I have two little manors —•" "That, Mr. ," Lord Mansfield inter jected, with a smile, " is a matter of common knowledge." This story, by the way, recalls a somewhat similar one of recent years, where an over bearing judge angrily said to a counsel, who had ventured to disagree with him: " I can't teach you manners, Mr. ." "That's so, m'lud," placidly answered the barrister, amid the titters of the court, as he proceeded with his argument. It was an American judge who scored over an unpopular counsel thus. The advocate, seeing that there was no longer any use in denying certain charges against his client, suddenly changed his tactics and tried another plan of battle. "Well," said he, " be it so. My client, we will admit, is a scoundrel and the greatest liar in the world." "Brother B ," promptly interrupted the judge, " are you not forgetting yourself?" However, things were equalized later, when the same judge, after a wearisome summing up in a nuisance case, said to the jury: " And now, I will retire while you are deliberating on your verdict, and I hope you understand the various points I have submitted to you." "Oh, yes, my lord," said the foreman; "we are all agreed that we never knew what a nuisance was until we heard your lordship's summing up." Some years ago, when Judge Addison was hearing county court cases in conjunction with Judge Bacon, a woman, whom the former had had occasion to lecture rather severely, took an egg out of her handbag and hurled it at him. Luckily, the egg missed the mark, whereupon Addison turned with a smile to the bar and said: " I really think that egg must have been intended for my brother Bacon." It was another judge, whose name has not been handed down with this story, who was hearing a case in which a sum of £10 was claimed by the plaintiff for commission. "My client," said his counsel, " has no wish to be hard on the defendant, but, naturally, having rendered him a valuable service, he requires a little quid pro quo."