500
plaintiff, Mr. Webster after making a strong ar gument against the defendant, showing that he had again and again instituted suits against his client, merely to perplex and annoy him, closed as follows : "In a word, gentlemen, I do not see how I can better conclude than in the words of the good old psalm." Then looking at the jury but pointing to the defendant, he repeated from his favorite authors, Sternhold and Hop kins : He digged a pit, he digged it deep, He digged it for his brother, By his great sin, he did fall in The pit he digged for t'other.
And so it proved. against the " digger."
The verdict was heavy
THE following anecdotes of Lord Coleridge are taken from an interesting sketch of the Lord Chief Justice in The Law Times : Perhaps he was at his best on such ceremonial occasions as receiving the Lord Mayor of London on his election, summing up a society cause ct'lfbre, addressing law students, or as treasurer of his Inn entertaining royalty. On one of these last occa sions, when the then Prince of Wales was a guest, the arrangement was " no speeches," yet no sooner had the Benchers withdrawn to the Parliament chamber to finish their festivities than the Prince gave the health of the Lord Chief Justice. Lord Coleridge was equal to the occasion. " Put not your trust in princes," he said, " was a lesson they had all learnt from the psalmist, and the truth of it had been veri fied that evening," and he went on to make a grace ful and felicitous speech, in which he quoted an epigram of Pope on a quondam Prince of Wales: "Mr. Pope, you do not like kings?" "Sir, I prefer the lion before his claws are grown." In 1883 the Lord Chief Justice went on a trip to the United States in company with Lord Bowen, Sir James Hannen, and Sir Charles Russell, on the invitation of the Bar Association of the State of New York. They received a noble welcome from the bench and bar of America, were splendidly entertained and feted everywhere. Apropos oí this trip, Lord Coleridge had an amusing story to tell of a dinner given him in Chicago by a once famous lawyer of that city. At the outset there was an ominous pause, and soon it transpired that the pause was due to the viands having been seized by a sheriff's officer put in by a creditor of the host. What if under the law of Illinois — the thought
flashed through the Chief Justice's mind during that anxious pause — what if the guests as well as the viands were liable to be taken in execution! Of course the Chief Justice had to submit to the inflic tion of the interviewer, but, as an old hand at the game of cross-examination, he was well able to bear his share with a grace. Here is a useful hint for solicitors which he extracted from an American attorney : — LORD COLERIDGE : " Pray, Mr. Evarts, how do clients pay their lawyers with you?" MR. EVARTS : " Well, my Lord, they pay a re taining fee; it may be fifty dollars or fifty thousand." LORD C. : " Yes! and what does that cover?" MR. E. : "Oh! that is simply a retainer. The rest is paid for as the work is done, and according to the work done." LORD C. : " Yes, Mr. Evarts; and do clients like that?" MR. E. : " Not a bit, my Lord; not a bit. They generally say : ' I guess, Mr. Evarts, I should like to know how deep down I shall have to go into my breeches pocket to see this business through.'" LORD C. : " Yes; what do you say then?" MR. E. : " Well, my Lord, I have invented a for mula which I have found answers very well. I say 'sir' or 'madam,' as the case may be, I cannot un dertake to say how many judicial errors I shall be called upon to correct before I obtain for you final justice." Here is another American reminiscence. The Chicago fire was then recent "I am told, my Lord, you think a great deal of what you call your Fire of London. Well, I guess that the conflagration we had in our little village of Chicago made your fire look very small." Lord Coleridge blandly replied : "Sir, I have every reason to believe that the Great Fire of London was quite as great as the peo ple at that time desired." Lord Coleridge was driving towards his court one morning in his brougham, when an accident happened to it at Grosvenor-square. Fearing he would be belated, he called a cab from the street rank and bade the Jehu drive him as rapidly as pos sible to the Courts of Justice. "And where be they?" '• What! A London cabby, and don't know where the Law Courts are at old Temple Bar?" "Oh! the Law Courts, is it? But you said Courts ofJustice"
LORD NORBURY once said. " When I read the interminable sentences of some authors, I begin to feel that their readers are in danger of being ' sentenced to death.' "
