Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 11.pdf/266

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Ctje #reen 3Sag. Publ1shed Monthly, at $4.00 per Annum.

S1ngle Numbers, 50 Cents.

Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, Horace W. Fuller, 344 Tremont Building, Boston. Mass. The Editor will be glad to reeeive eontributions of artieles of moderate length upon subjeets of inter est to the profession; also anything in the way of legal antiquities or euriosities, faeetia, anee dotes, ete. FACETI/E. Wh1le Frederic Remington was in the West he observed a well-executed portrait on the wall of a dark room in a cabin, and asked whose picture it was. "That's my husband," said the woman of the house, carelessly. " But it is hung with fatal effect," urged the artist. " So was my husband," snapped the woman. One of those old-time negroes — the kind that Polk Miller describes so charmingly — was some years ago called as a witness in one of the courts. "What's your name? " was the first question propounded by the Attorney-General. "George Washington, sor," replied the old man. "George Washington," repeated the lawyer, and after a moment of reflection said, " It seems to me that I have heard that name before." "'Spects you has, sor," said the old negro. "I'se been libing 'bout hyar many years." Judge Wheaton A. Gray, recently elevated to the supreme court commission, was hearing a criminal case in Fresno, and on a warm day, at the end of a long harangue by the prosecuting counsel, he noticed one of the jurymen asleep. As soon as the argument was completed, the judge addressed the jury in this peculiar manner : "Gentlemen of the jury, the prosecuting attorney has completed his agrument; wake up and listen to the instructions of the court." Lawyer : " Then I understand you to swear, witness, that the parties came to high words?" W1tness : " No, sir; what I say is, the words was particularly low."

NOTES. There are advanced people in North Dakota, and they must be fully represented in the State Legislature. It was reported, a short time since, that the North Dakota Senate had passed a bill which provides that applicants for marriage li censes in that State shall be examined as to their health, and that licenses shall be denied to per sons who shall be found to be suffering from va rious diseases, including dipsomania, hereditary insanity, and tuberculosis. The responsibility of passing upon applicants would rest upon a com mittee of three physicians in each county, ap pointed by a judge. In Australia a motion for a parliamentary committee to examine "Cresswell," the new Tichborne claimant, has been lost by one vote. Cresswell has been an inmate of the Parramatta lunatic asylum for many years, and recently yielded to the appeals of his friends and pro nounced himself to be the real Sir Roger. One strange feature of the case is this : The Cress well estate, to which it is practically admitted the man is entitled, adjoins the Tichborne estate, and the Parramatta authorities have announced their intention of descending upon it to recoup themselves for keeping the ex-lunatic during all the years he has been in their asylum. There is one country in the world, and prob ably, only one, which gets along with a single policeman : that is Iceland. Iceland is peopled by the descendants of Vikings, including many famous warriors and heroes, but they are so lawabiding that they have no need of policemen. The solitary officer, in spite of his great respon sibility, has a very easy time. He is maintained more for ornament and dignity than for use. The Icelanders think it would not do to have a capital without a policeman, and so they keep one. This police force is large in one sense. Its member is six feet high, broad-shouldered, and handsomely uniformed. 241