Some Notes on Quibbling. merit, but here, notwithstanding such wound ing, the party may yet be living, and it is then but trespass. Wherefore it was ad judged for the defendant." Sir Thomas's attack upon his cook reminds one of the smiting of Pandarus by Turnus: — Scalp, face, and shoulders the keen steel divides, And the shared visage hangs on equal sides.
If Virgil had had the true legal instinct, he surely would have added that the wound was fatal. A man once said of an attorney, that he had " no more law than Mr. Crocker's bull." For this he was brought to court, whereupon he endeavored to escape by saying that Mr. Crocker had no bull. But the quibble did not work. " If that be so," said the judge who tried the case, " then the scandal is the greater." That reminds me of the schoolboy — evidently one of the lawyers sown by nature — who, having been convicted of some offense and sentenced to the usual punish ment, requested as a favor that its execution be postponed until he had got his evening meal of bread and milk. This indulgence being formally granted, the youngster de clared that he did not mean to eat any bread and milk that evening, and contended that consequently the promise made to him amounted to a reprieve sine die. The lad deserved to escape for his cleverness, but it is recorded that old Dryasdust only walloped him the harder. In the matter of slander the quibble has frequently been employed with successful results. For instance, A said of B that he had " as much sense as a pig." That A meant to be abusive was plain, but he wormed himself out of any unpleasant con sequences by arguing that to say B had as much sense as a pig, was by no means to say that he did not have a great deal more. Again, C publicly remarked of D that he "deserved to be hanged as much as ever Blank did at Newgate." This was not action
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able, as it was a mere expression of opinion, and D could not prove that C did not be lieve that Blank never deserved hanging. Here is a peculiar hypothetical case which I picked up in an old volume : Brown and Smith are witnesses on a case. Brown says to Smith, " One of us is perjured! " Smith replies, " It is not I." Brown says, " I'm sure it is not I." Smith shall then have cause for action for these words, for in the brief colloquy, Brown has called him a per jurer, just as surely as if "he had said, " Smith, you are a perjurer!" Sir William Fish once attempted to escape an obligation by a quibble. He had been ordered by court to pay " fifty pounds " on a certain day at Gray's Inn. Promptly at the appointed time he appeared, and tend ered fifty pounds weight of stone. Sir William's ruse had all the success it de served. An ancient case of court quibbling is the following, recorded by Herodotus. It ap pears that Archetimus of Erythraea, having made a journey to Tenedos, and availed himself of the hospitality of Cydias, handed over to his host a sum of money for safe keeping. When Cydias was asked to return this money, he refused to do so, and the pair went to law. Finally the whole matter hung upon Cydias' oath. Now the latter was too much of a knave to confess the truth, and too much of a coward to tell a bold lie, so he devised the plan of conceal ing the money in the hollow of a walkingstick which he put into Archetimus' hands. Having done this he swore that, although he had received the money in question, he had afterwards given it back. This would have been sufficient for his release, had not a peculiar thing happened. Archetimus in a rage threw down the stick with such violence that it broke, disclosing the treasure and discovering the trick. Herodotus imputes the discovery to Divine Providence, and adds that Cydias ultimately came to an unhappy end.
