Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 04.pdf/108

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Editorial Department.

somebody reported the fact to the St- Albans lawyer. "What is that? " he asked. "Why, Chaquette says that the lawyers' bills are simply outrageous." "Is that so?" exclaimed the St. Albans man. "Great Scott! after all that has been done, that man goes and has a lucid interval!"

A LAWYER'S APPETITE. "Friend White," said Mr. Smith one day (Smith was an epicure), "Though lawyers are well fed, they say, You Vtr hungry, I am sure; So let your musty law books be, And come and dine to-night with me." "Thanks for your kindly sympathy," Said White, with lofty smile; "But after all, it seems to me, 'T is hardly worth my while. For there 's enough — as you 'll infer — Provision in the statute, sir!" Jean La Rue Burnett.

NOTES. A subscriber sends the following case of con tributory negligence in Ireland (from the " Spec tator " of November 28) : — "A quarrel had taken place at a fair, and a culprit was being sentenced for manslaughter. The doctor, however, had given evidence to show that the vic tim's skull was abnormally thin. The prisoner, on being asked if he had anything lo say for himself, replied: 'No, yer honor; but 1 wo«ld ask, was that a skull for a man to go to a fair wid? '"

called upon to swear that he would tell the truth, in the customary manner, the officer naturally raised his left hand. The counsel for the de fendant objected to the witness at once, on the grounds that "an oath taken with the left hand was worthless." The learned judges were unable to decide the question, and withdrew to an ante room for consultation. In a few minutes the Solons reappeared, and the President read the following decision, from a literary and patriotic point of view, worthy of a Monsieur Prudhomme : "In consideration of the fact that when the glo rious remnants of our army appear in our courts to respond to their legal duties, we cannot de mand that they take oath with those limbs which they have lost in the service of their country, we decide that the oath just made with the left hand of the witness is admissible." An attorney was telling about the meanest man in the country. He got into trouble in New Hampshire, and, said the lawyer, " he hired about the best lawyer in the State of New Hamp shire, and the lawyer worked hard on the case, neglecting his other business for this client. Well, the man got off, but he never paid his lawyer a cent for his work." One man in the group was well acquainted in New Hampshire, and he asked who the lawyer was. " Well," said the teller of the story, blushing a little, " maybe he was n't the best in the State; but at any rate, he worked like a dog on the case. To tell you the truth, I was the lawyer myself." The next check that was brought to the group was paid by "about the best lawyer in the State of New Hampshire."

ftttcnt Dearth. The most virtuous man would, ten times at least in the course of his life, be considered a fit subject for the gallows, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the rigid scrutiny of the laws of his country. — Montaigne.

A brave French officer, now on the retired list, who lost his right arm in the Franco-Prussian War, appeared as a witness before a court in a city in the south of France a few weeks ago. When

On Oct. 29, 189 1, at his home in Trenton, Mo., Judge Rezin A. DeBolt died, after some months' illness from a cancerous affection. He was born on a farm in Fairfield County, Ohio, in 1828, and remained a farmer-boy until, in his seventeenth year, he was apprenticed to learn the trade of tanner, served his apprenticeship of three years, and worked at the trade eight years thereafter, giving all his spare time to perfecting his educa tion and the study of law. His only schooling