Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/174

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Editorial Department.

149

fore Recorder Smyth, was fined for contempt of it provoke tartness. This came when an old court. This consisted in advising his client not . serjeant retorted, " Did your lordship refer to to arise for identification by a witness on order of the last citation made before your lordship gave the court — the counsellor taking the point that Somnus a new trial, or the citation I made when this was compelling the client to be a witness your lordship produced a'gap in my argument." against himself. Now on New Year's Day, the Nothing nettled, Baron Pollock imperturbably disciplined young lawyer succeeded the disciplining answered, " The one immediately succeeding the judge. gap." Upon another occasion a young barrister from a provincial circuit about to make a suggestion Another and more curious instance of this regarding an infant heir remarked, addressing Sir whirligigging took place in the same city and state Frederick, " I assume that your lordship is a some years ago. Early in the civil war time, a married man and "; — but before he concluded young lad named James O'Brien was sentenced the sentence the Chief Baron with a merry to the penitentiary for an alleged riotous act — twinkle in his eye at the assembled Bar re that however was really a boyish bit of disorder — sponded : " It would, not be a violent assumption, by Recorder Barnard. Twenty years Later the for I have five great-grandchildren, and the total young lad had served as sheriff, and next became number of my descendants is eighty-five." A a state senator. The Recorder had become a witty barrister present whispered, " Sir Frederick Supreme Court Judge, and as such being im is quoting Pollock's ' Course of Time. '" peached, came up for trial before the senate of which James O'Brien was a member. And his vote aided in consigning his former judge to dis A blacksmith of a village in Spain murdered a honor. man, and was condemned to be hanged. The Judge Walter Clark of the Supreme Court of North Carolina is evidently level-headed. Called upon at the late election to further state his position, he disposed of- his questioner by the re mark : " I understand five different languages, and I know how to be silent in each of them." Silence proved to be golden to him, for as a con sequence he received 100,000 more votes than were ever cast for any man in the state.

A son of the late Sir Frederick Pollock, the last Chief Baron of the English Court of the Exchequer before its merging into the Supreme Court of Judicature, is soon to visit the United States. He much resembles his father, who in his day was regarded as the most distinguished looking of all his judicial brethren. Like a once renowned justice of the United States Supreme Court, the venerable Chief Baron took a nap pretty regularly about mid-day. His waking was comical. For when his " forty winks" ended he would start to seize a pen and with imperturbable gravity say to the arguing counsel, " What page was your last citation?" The harmless deceit was humored by the Bar, and only once did

chief peasants of the place joined together and begged the Alcade that the blacksmith might not suffer, because he was necessary to the place, which could not do without a blacksmith to shoe horses, mend wheels and such offices. But the Alcade said, " How then can I carry out the law?" A laborer answered, "Sir, there are two weavers in the village, and for so small a place one is enough! you may hang the other."

LO! THE POOR LAWYER. At Halifax, that quaint old city, There dwelt a lawyer whose renown For crafty, subtle, fox-like cunning Spread far beyond his native town. Like lawyers everywhere, he oft Found clients who were far mure free To enter into suit of law Than pay their lawyer's well-earned fee. An Indian, of the Miami, For service rendered long ago, Indebted was to him, and seemed Contented well to leave it so. The lawyer waited long; at last His patience bore no longer strain, With process, judgment, execution, He threatened, nor was it in vain.