Court of Appeals arguing in favor of a new trial for an important civil case, which the lower court was unwilling to have re-tried. The judges had intimated more than once that they agreed with the learned counsel, and that he was entitled to a new trial, but Mr. Oswald still continued to argue. At last, Lord Esher, the President of the Court, said, " Mr. Oswald, why did you not urge these arguments in the court below?" Mr. Oswald, " I did, my Lord, but their Lord ships stopped me." Lord Esher (much sur prised that anybody could stop this learned counsel) : " They stopped you, did they; pray how did they manage to do it?" Mr. Oswald (who always will have the last word) : " By fraudulently pretending to agree with me, my Lord." Courts of law are now and then enlivened by the unintentional comicalities which will occa sionally crop up even in most serious cases. In a certain lunacy case, tried in the Court of Queen's Bench, the last witness called by Mr. Montague Chambers, leading counsel for the plaintiff, was a doctor, who, at the close of his evidence, described a case of delirium tremens treated by him, in which the patient recovered in a single night. "It was," said the witness, " a case of gradual drinking — sipping all day, from morning till night." These words were scarcely uttered when Mr. Chambers, who had examined the witness, turn ing to the Bench, and unconsciously accenting the last word but one, said : — "My Lord, that is my case." Roars of irrepressible laughter convulsed the Court. One of the pipes which heat the Supreme Court building at Raleigh, N.C., runs under the platform upon which the judges sit when court is in session. They must differ in temperament, however harmonious their rulings may generally be, for a visitor inspecting the building lately, seeing the pipe asked the engine-man if he could make the court comfortable. " Well," said he "I can het 'em hot an' I can het 'em cold, but how I can het some of 'em hot an' some of 'em cold an' all five of 'em a-setting in the same line is beyond my peravention."
Meeting a person of not immaculate character, clad in black, Judge Vose (of New Hampshire) asked him for whom he was in mourning. " For my sins," answered the man jocularly. " Have you lost any of them?" inquired the Judge.
NOTES. I've been list'nin' to them lawyers in the court house where they meet. An' I've come to the conclusion that I'm most completly beat. Fust one feller riz to argy, an' he boldly waided in, As he dressed the tremblin' pris'ner in a coat o' deep-dyed sin. Why, he painted him all over in a hue o' blackest crime, An' he smeared his reputation with the thickest kind o' grime, Tell I found myself a-wond'rin', in a misty way and dim, How the Lord had come to fashion sich an awful man as him. Then the other lawyer started, an', with brimmin', tearful eyes, Said his client was a martyr that was brought to sacrifice; An' he gave to that same pris'ner every blessed human grace, Tell I saw the light o' virtue fairly shinin' from his face. Then I own 'at I was puzzled how sich things could rightlv be; An' this aggervatin' question seems to keep a-puzzlin' me; So, will some one please inform me, an' this myst'ry un roll — How an angel an' a devil can persess the self-same soul? -• Themis"
John C. Chamberlain once inquired of James Wilson of New Hampshire, why he did not address the reason instead of the feelings of jurors. "Too small a mark," replied Wilson,— "too small a mark for me to hit."
According to annual custom, on the first Mon day after the Feast of the Epiphany, or " Plough Monday " as it is generally called, a Grand Court of Wardmote is held at Guild Hall, London. The court is summoned for the purpose of re ceiving the returns from the several wards of the city of the election of members of the Court of Common Council and for hearing petitions against those returns, and of admitting the City Marshall, the ward beadles and the extra con stables. According to Ashe, the appellation of
