Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 24.pdf/620

 The Legal World turning to the lawyers who were grouped around him, remarked: "Gentlemen, this is a sad case. The only living man who ever knew the liability of a common carrier has for gotten." POSSESSION DURING the cross-examination of a witness summoned in a case tried in an Indiana court involving the owner ship of a tract of land counsel said to a witness: "The property whereon you live was originally a part of the thirty acres in dispute, was it not?"

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"Yes, sir." "Have you had — and I ask that you give special attention to this question — have you had twenty-five years' undis puted possession of that property?" Witness hesitated for a moment, a fact which the cross-examiner sought to turn to his advantage. "Bear in mind, sir," he said in a most impressive tone, "that you are under oath. Have you had twenty-five years' undisputed possession of that land?" "It has been disputed once, and only once," said the witness. "I found a nest of bumblebees there one day last summer."

The Editor mil it glad to recent for thit department anything likely to entertain the readers tj the Green Bag in the way tf ltgal antiquities, faeetix, and anecdotes.

USELESS BUT ENTERTAINING LEGAL DEFINITIONS A fine is so called from the remark of a trust official after being ordered to pay one instead of being sent to jail as he feared. Cross-examination is the process of convincing the witness that he is either a liar or an idiot. An accident case is an insulting accusation against a philanthropic railroad corporation which fills every right-minded judge with indig nation. A lawyer is a man who draws a pension for his client's injuries.

A crime is a combination of unskillfulness in business and a bad lawyer. An attorney's fee is what is left from a judg ment after subtracting the court costs. The word jury is derived from a Latin one meaning " to swear," a reference to the effect of their verdicts on litigants. A verdict is an agreement between twelve jurymen as to which side needs the money most. The decisions of judges and juries are called findings because for the winner a judgment is usually like finding money.

The Legal World Monthly Analysis of Leading Legal Events The month has offered some encourag ing developments tending in the direction of an improved court procedure. The Becker trial, in New York, illustrates how much an efficient judge can do under existing conditions to insure the just and speedy conduct of a criminal trail. Mr. Justice Goff showed that it

was not necessary to summon a panel of five hundred talesmen to get a jury, and the selection of the jury was spurred on by the holding of night sessions until it was named. By his discrimination in rulings upon evidence, by checking un duly lengthy cross-examination, and holding long sessions that the continuity of the evidence should not be inter rupted, an important witness being