branch of law in this country bear his noble name as plaintiff. He was admitted to the bar of New York by Judge George Barnard's general term, about 1862, as a joke; and he picked up a little poor practice, always appearing in a velvet coat, with many decorations. At the bar and in the newspapers he was the butt of the merry Bohemians of that city, who wrote derisive articles about him, and then per suaded him to apply for indictments and bring actions for damages, all of which came to nothing. A district attorney was one of these tormentors and abetters, and Judge McCunn, who presided, was in the secret. The counsel on both sides treated the Count with mock deference, always addressing him by his full pretended title of " Le Chevalier George Count Johannes," on every possible occasion. The court-room was packed, and thus was the poor fellow roasted to make a Gotham holiday. I do not know that these proceedings were alleged as a ground of im peachment against Barnard and McCunn, but poor Jones had his revenge, perhaps without knowing it. That district attorney, now elderly and gray-haired, writes me of these juvenile capers in a strain of unholy glee, and says they made " a rare opera bouffe." The Count once applied to the Supreme Court of New York for an injunction to re strain Sothern, the actor, from appearing in a character which the Count claimed to be a burlesque of the plaintiff, called the "Crushed Tragedian." The motion was denied upon the grounds that he produced no precedent for such an aclion, and no proof that the allegations of his complaint were true. (A sculptor presented to the New York Press Club a statuette of Sothern in this character.) Although the Count's law was not gener ally esteemed as remarkable for soundness, yet he was the cause that sound law was in other men. In the leading case of " The Count Johannes " v. Bennett, 5 Allen, 169, it
was held that a letter to a woman, containing libelous matter concerning her suitor, can not be justified on the grounds that the writer was her friend and former pastor, and the letter was written at the request and with the approval of her parents. The Count con ducted his own case, at least on the appeal. There was a verdict for the plaintiff, of $2000, I believe, which seems generous considering that the letter did not intimidate the young woman, who married the Count in spite of it. The jury probably intended to punish the minister for his officious intermeddling. In another place the present writer thus de scribed the action : " The lady in question was a widow, who had been a member of the defendant's church choir, and resided with her parents, who were members of the church to which he formally ministered. The Count visited Massachusetts, and there met the quondam soprano, and cast about her the witchery of his melancholy spell, and caused her to love and desire to marry him. The plebeian parents, with a base hatred of high birth and aristocratic mien, made objections, and persuaded the minister to write a letter to the daughter casting aspersions upon the Count's fair fame. For this the jury gave him damages. The court said the matter was none of the defendant's business, that he had no interest in it, and that his act was not in the performance of any duty. They declined to consider the matter in the light of the pastoral relation, holding that as the widow had ceased to sing for him he had no privilege to write to her, or at least to abuse the good and noble Count." It is evident that the Count was not a pro found lawyer, for his lady-love having hand ed him the offending letter on the day before their marriage, he destroyed it, and took no copy. On the trial he was allowed to recite its contents from memory, and the Supreme Court held this to be error, and granted a new trial, on the ground that a party may not destroy primary evidence and substitute secondary evidence for it. The court should
