Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/123

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The Green Bag.

out the whole British Empire, but more espe cially in Canada, where he was so well known and so greatly esteemed. The Queen as a special mark of royal favor never before shown to any of her subjects, ordered one of her greatest warships to convey the remains to Halifax; and there, in the home of his boyhood, with funereal pomp and pageantry surpassing anything ever before witnessed in Britain's immense colonial empire, all that was mortal of Canada's noblest and clean est statesman was laid at rest. C. FACETIÆ. The following letter was recently received by a lawyer in New York State : — Mr.

Come Down to Day. Case Salt &

Batray, or Send Police Justis Down ameatley Knocked Down in my Own Hotell 3 times without any Provocation 1 am not able to come up I want you to take Him Beforr Half the Pepel. Yours

Last winter Mr. Justice Harlan delivered a lecture on the Bering Sea Arbitration before a large audience of law students in a western city. His Honor, after taking up the legal side of the question, described graphically and learnedly the habits, migrations and peculiarities of the seal, with elaborate references to other animals which seemed to offer instructive analogies. A few days after, a student who had read law a few months was asked how he liked the lecture. "Oh, very much," replied he, " very much in deed — very instructive — in fact I think I learned more Natural History from Justice Har lan than from all of Blackstone."

Old Grizzle was a man of will, And money, too, galore. He quarreled with his relatives, With him, they calmly bore. For men must die, and Grizzle did, But with his latest breath, He gave his money to the poor. He had a will in death.

One of the most famous French advocates, Langlois, was asked by the President of the Par liament of Paris why he took upon him to plead

bad causes. He answered, with a smile, that he did it because he had lost a great many good ones. NOTES. Some of our modern judges would do well to bear in mind the story of Lord Mansfield's advice to an old army officer, who knew little of law, and who had been appointed governor of a West India Island. The most appalling duty which the governor had to perform was the administration of justice, and in his ignorance he addressed Lord Mansfield in a tone of great concern, saying he knew nothing of law, and asking what he should do as the presiding officer of the local Court of Chancery on the island to which he was going, " Tut, man," said Mans field, " decide promptly, but never give any reasons for your decisions. Your decisions may be right, but your reasons are sure to be wrong." A terr1ble disease seems just at present to be epidemic among the members of the Bar. A "poetic mania " has seized them. The malady has appeared in a malignant form in Kansas, two prominent lawyers being the victims. AVe are indebted to the Kansas City " Star " for the following account of its ravages : — The damage suit of J. J. Smith against Kansas City, Kas., which was tried in the Court of Common Pleas in Kansas City, Kas., last week, is the cause of considerable merriment among the members of the Wyandotte County Bar. Mr. Smith was repre sented by Colonel L. C. True, and the City by City Counsellor Reese. It is the first case on record in that court in which the argument was made in poetry, the plaintiff getting a verdict apparently on the strength of the poetic appeal to the jury. When the evidence was all in Colonel True de livered his argument. It was a short statement of the case fnd included this novel address to the jury: — Is there no place on the face of the earth Where charity dwelleth, where virtue has birth? Where bosoms in kindness and mercy will heave, And the poor and the wretched shall ask and receive? Is there no place on earth where a knock from the poor Will bring a kind angel to open the door? Ah! search the wide world wherever you can, There is no open door for the moneyless man. Go look in your church of the cloud-reaching spire. Which gave back to the sun his same look of fire,