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
