Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/256

 The Green Bag

228

Law Journal of January 27, 1911, page

1750.

This interesting case is founded

and we will fare up the mountain side to the echo.’

So they journeyed up to

upon the quaint custom in your local

the Supreme Court and there Patesoni

mountains of consulting an echo.

said, ‘Your Honor, here stand I, Patesoni, who have committed no crime, yet stand

A

good echo up in the alps serves the purpose of the Written Document in low

land civilization.

Like the written docu

ment the echo does not depart from its original instructions, and is a useful servant accordingly, though lacking in

telligence of its own.

Its chief service

is when some violent crime is committed

in high altitudes, and the mountain echo makes its eloquent and immutable

record of the guilty deed. This Patesoni was a local mountaineer. He had done something or other, was promptly brought up for it before a Justice of the Peace, and, on his own plea of guilty, was sentenced and taken to jail. What

committed for it.’ And the Judge said, ‘What means this? What has this man done?’ And then the warden said nothing, as was proper, and pointed to the echo.

So they loosed the echo, and

the Judge asked it ‘Of what was this man guilty?‘ And Echo answered faintly, ‘Guilty of train-riding.’ And the Judge asked Central for more power, and again questioned the echo. And Echo, now resonant and clear, answered ‘Guilty of train-riding.‘ Then the four

comers of Monte Rosa caught and sent back the sound. And the stately Matter horn, horn proclaimed the Breithorn, it back and the again: Rimpﬁsch ‘train

he was guilty of I cannot say exactly.

It It at in

is proper to assume he knew himself. is just to the Justice to assume that least he too knew something. But the noise and hubbub of the due

administration of the law, such a detail

goes disregarded or is quickly slurred over. ‘Your Honor,’ the prosecutor in this case may have said, ‘Your Honor,

this infamous man has committed the heinous crime of * * * train-riding.’ And then the eloquent attorney for the ac cused may have replied, ‘Your Honor,

my unfortunate client will confess to the distressing crime of * * * train-rid ing.’ Then after the Justice had spoken a few well-chosen words about certain

criminal aspects of * * * train-riding, the prisoner duly pleaded to the crime of * * * train-riding. And all the time Echo, which pays little heed to such things as * * *, was making up the ofﬁ

cial record of the case. Once in jail, Patesoni cried to the warden, ‘By my faith, I like not this place. NOW bring me a good walking-staff of M56118 corpus

riding,’ till even distant Finsteraarhorn

with sombre chortle, solemnly whispered ‘train-riding.‘

“But the Judge was angry and said, ‘Ten thousand woolsacks, now what is this crime of train-riding! Do we not all train-ride? the infant, mewling and

puking in its nurse's arms? the lean and slippered pantaloon? the justice, his belly with fat capon lined — all go train riding in their proper times and places. But what cannot be a crime is not a crime. Warden, unshake the shackles

from this man!’ “So Patesoni came down from the mountain a free man, and saw the sun slanting down in long golden levels through the valley, and the little hills rejoicing with him while the echo lulla

byed, ‘train-riding.’" “Did Patesoni pay his lawyer a proper fee for all that orchestration?" said the Barrister, morosely. “You can ask the echo,” said Nature-faker.

the