Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 25.pdf/432

 The Editor's Bag able to give him even a common school education. He learned to read "plain print," but he could never speak, much less write, English correctly. He worked as a laborer for a farmer, and then went into trade as a country storekeeper. Subsequently he became a farmer and a lumberman. He was elected from time to time to the Board of Selectmen, to the Provincial Congress, and to the State Legislature, where he served one year as Speaker of the House. Then he was appointed one of the superior judges, in which capacity he acquired the reputation of administer ing justice better than any other judge in the state. His judicial functions were, it is said, performed with a judgment that was rarely at fault. He listened attentively to counsel expounding the law, but formed his opinion from the evidence, and enforced it upon jurors with a rude eloquence that was effective. No one questioned his judicial impartiality, and the common people were satisfied with a judge who administered justice on foundations of common sense. Even the lawyers, when unprejudiced by de feat, expressed their satisfaction with the decisions of the rude, unlettered, un learned, but judicial judge. For he had the judicial mind and temperament, without which no learning in the law, no mental ability to support an opinion, can make a justice a successful judge.

HAPPENINGS IN COURT ONE day before Judge Gibbons in Chicago two solicitors were argu ing fiercely as to the amount of tempo rary solicitor's fees to be allowed the complainant in her bill for divorce. Finally the argument terminated in the following climax: —

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"Now, if the Court please, I submit there is no merit in her case and $10 is enough for his services." "And I submit, if the Court please, that there is merit in our case and that $200 is not too much for my ser vices." "Well," smiled the judge, "I will have to compromise for you two. I will give him four times as much as you suggest, and one-fourth as much as he asks, and make it $50. That ought to be fair to both of you. Draw the order." "Fifty dollars!" shouted the solicitor. "For his services! Why, she could get a good lawyer for that, your Honor!" "If the Court please," remonstrated the solicitor, "I insist that the defend ant be not given further time, but that he be attached for contempt. Five different orders have been entered by this court in as many months that he pay his alimony, and not one cent has been paid. Why, he isn't even here today to offer any excuse, and I have been in formed he goes about laughing at me and at this court for trying to make him go to work and support his chil dren. Yes, sir, actually laughing at the dignity of this court!" "Laughing at the court, you say! I suppose there are a good many that laugh at this court when they get away from here. But if this court hears of it, it will certainly stop it. Mr. Clerk, issue the attachment instanter." "No, I will order your client to pay the defendant $100 as temporary solicitor's fees and $200 as temporary expense money to defend herself against your charges in this divorce proceed ing," finally concluded the judge, in one of the Chicago courts. "One hundred dollars as temporary solicitor's fees!" shouted the opposing