to the " magic lantern," he alleges that " These Aladdins of the nineteenth century could not work the combination." Possibly the Missouri court may discover, when it comes to look into the devious methods of these Mammon-smitten promoters, that Aladdin's lamp was, after all, only a cinematograph, concealed from our view by the terminology of oriental mysticism. Or, perhaps, this judicial investigation may reveal the fact that Aladdin was the real originator of the " living picture " device. Strange to say the brief makes no allusion to the philosopher's stone, or to the purse of Fortunatus. IT is refreshing, after reading some of our complex and lengthened statutes, to turn to a Scotch act of Parliament of the reign of James the First, which briefly and pithily enacts that "пае man should enter any place where there is hay with a candle unless it be in a lantern." The whole of the Scotch acts of Parliament passed in the reign of James the First, extend ing over thirteen Parliaments, and amounting to 133 in number, were comprehended in forty-six pages of a small duodecimo volume, and that volume contained the whole Scotch acts of Parliament from 1426 to 1621, being nearly two hundred years. A MAN was being tried recently in New South Wales for stealing a watch. The evidence was conflicting, and the jury made up their minds to retire, but before they left the hall the judge re marked that if there were any points on which they required information he would be pleased to assist them. Eleven of the jurymen had left the box, but the twelfth remained standing, with his eyes fixed downward, as if absorbed in thought. " Well sir," said the judge, " is there any question you would like to ask me before you retire?" "I would like to know, my lord," came the reply, " if you could tell us whether the prisoner stole the watch?" N. Y. Tribune.
THE late Maj. James Brown of Taunton, was not only a brilliant lawyer in his day, but con siderable of a wit, with a memory well stocked with quaint and curious precedents and tra ditions in legal lore. He had carried a case, in
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which his client had been convicted on the charge of being an habitual drunkard, up to the Supreme Court on a point of law involving the issue of what a state of intoxication was as a legal proposition. This he proceeded to argue to the court. It was evident that the gallant major was con ducting a forlorn hope. Of that nobody was more fully aware than himself. But his client— the dissolute heir of a prominent Bristol county family — was wealthy, as well as dissolute, full of fight and ready to pay whatever fee his lawyer would demand. Brown, on his part, was equally willing to do all he could to earn it. Finally, after permitting the lawyer to argue along for some time in a way that was delightfully enter taining, since he entered very minutely into a discourse on the various phases and degrees of intoxication, drawing on personal reminiscences, humorous anecdotes, old saws and some legal authorities to point his argument, the presiding justice courteously intimated that, while much of what the major was submitting was highly interesting, still it wasn't law. He suggested that Brown should state specifically, if he could, what actually constituted a condition of unques tionable intoxication, and cite some authority worthy the profound consideration of the court, whereupon the lawyer remarked that he was pre pared to do that, although he would have to go back into the realm of English jurisprudence to a period long antedating the era of Blackstone. In those ancient days, under the common law, he said, it is written that the determination of the question of whether a man was drunk or not was settled by the following test, which was accepted by the experts, legal and others, as in fallible : Not drunk is he who from the floor Can rise again and drink once more. But drunk is he who prostrate lies, And cannot either drink or rise. The gravity of the court was somewhat upset by the citation which Brown delivered with mock seriousness and elocutionary effect, but the judges were evidently not convinced that the precedent was sufficiently sound and reput able to deserve affirmation by the supreme ju dicial court of Massachusetts, inasmuch as a decision was forthwith handed down overruling the contentions of Maj. Brown. Fall Rirer Globe.
