Bench and Bar Witty Encounters. and readiness of repartee was remarked. When just admitted to the bar, he was before a Peekskill justice of the peace and was per haps youthfully overbearing when the Jus tice of the Peace remarked — with emphasis on the word me — " D'ye expect me to teach you manners, young man? " The answer was, "I have no such expectation, your honor, and I do not believe any one else has such hopeless expectation." A member of the New York bar, who was professor in one of the Metropolitan law schools, on one occasion when the late Judge George G. Barnard was a member of a court in banco, fairly lectured the Bench on the law applicable to his appeal; when Barnard thus pleasantly interrupted : " Be kind enough to remember, Professor, that we have all at least attended a primary law school." A counsel once arguing the question of premeditation in murder and whether a de sign to kill could be formulated on an in stant of thought, had said before the Court of Appeals that no instance of such a possi
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bility of design and fulfilment concurrent was extant, was interrupted by Chief-Justice Hen ry G. Davies — a great churchman — with, "Oh yes; in the first chapter of Genesis : ' And God said let there be light : and there was light.'" "Quite so, Chief Justice," was the repar tee, " but my client had no divine aid; for the indictment on page 3 of the Bill of Ex ceptions charged him with 'being moved and instigated thereunto by the devil.'" When the vast scope of the constant attri tion of judicial and legal minds that is afford ed under the court machinery of this entire Union is considered, only then due estima tion can be had as to the extent and quality of the rhetorical result of " keen encounter of wits " in its two or three hundred court rooms habituated by men of mental training in thought and fancy, as well as of the inter est which full reports of such encounters, if possible to be made, would disseminate to readers.
