Thc Green Bag.
436
been obtained as a Citizen in this very City and I think there is no power on earth to expelí me from here, I think the whole matter is only arranged to scare me and drive me away from here, I have commited no act, even if there should be such a law, as to drive aman away from a City, where he is a legal Citizen, to warrant such a thing, as that, as I have commited no crime or anything to make me amenable to the law, I think the whole affair is noth ing but a piece of blackmail and I hope you will use your most possible efforts, to deliver me out of this stigma. Yours Obdt. Servt.
proper heads, and propose them to the people. They were at first summed up in ten tables, but in the following year two more were added. Hence they were called " The Laws of the Twelve Ta bles," — the foundation of Roman jurisprudence.
РАСЕТ1Ж. Yours truly,
G. G. S.
FOR " high-flown " language commend us to the following : — LYNCHBURG, VA. Editor of the " Green Bag " : DEAR SIR, — I send the " Green Bag " the fol lowing sample of judicial pyrotechnics. It is the entire syllabus of the case of Bonsack Machine Co. v. Woodrum, as reported from the Court of Appeals of Virginia, including italics : — "A contract is endorsed and signed, ' and this contract is, for value received, declared ended and settled ' The word ' ended ' means final, Jeßniliм, cornplete, eonetusi-v. It imports what will be, when the Apocalyptic Angel, with one foot on the sea and the other upon the earth, shall lift his hand to heaven, and swear by ///i/i that liveth forever and ever, that there shall be ' Time no longer.' It will not then be admissible to offer parol testimony to alter, vary, and contradict the explicit terms of the awful de<laration; and to prove that non obstante the unambig uous monis themselves, ' Time still rolls his ceaseless course,' for some of the provisions of man's tenure upon earth."
Seeing that the aforesaid •'awful declaration" will be a parol declaration, the court fails to show upon what ground the parol testimony will be ruled out. Still it is well to be warned against a waste of breath in offering such testimony.
VIRGINIAN.
LEGAL ANTIQUITIES.
IN the year of the city 300, the Romans, who had hitherto been governed by very imperfect laws, sent three deputies to Greece to make an exact collection of the laws of Solon, the law-giver of the Athenians. On the return of the deputies, the decemviri were elected; that is, ten of the most distinguished citizens were appointed with sovereign authority to dispose these laws under
A VERY stupid foreman asked a judge how they were to ignore a bill. " Write ' Ignoramus for self andfellows ' on the back of it," said Curran. "No man," said a wealthy but weak-headed barrister, " should be admitted to the Bar who had not an independent landed property." "May I ask, sir," said Mr. Curran, " iiow many acres make a wise-acre?" "WELL," said the man who handed his last cent to the lawyer, " I suppose turn about is fair play : I broke the law and the law broke me." LORD COLERIDGE tells this story of Browning : Browning lent him one of his works to read, and afterward meeting the poet the lord chief justice said to him, " What I could understand I heartily admired, and parts ought to be immortal; I ad mired it or not, because for the life of me I could not understand it." Browning replied, " If a reader of your calibre understands ten per cent of what I write I think I ought to be content." A PROMINENT lawyer of Buffalo tells of a com promise he once made on behalf of a certain railway company with an Erie county farmer whose wife had been killed at a railroad crossing. A few months after the terrible bereavement, the hus band, who had sued the company for $5,000 damages, came into the office and accepted a com promise of $500. As he stuffed the wad of bills in his pocket, he turned to the lawyer and cheerily remarked, " Veil, dot 's not so bad after all. I Ve got fife hundret tollar, and goot teal better wife as I had before." ONE of the sovereign people broke a chair over his wife's head. When taken to jail and con versed with by the chaplain, he displayed a good deal of repentance. He said he " was very sorry
