Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/490

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Editorial Department.

off his ground that she had another husband, began an action for a decree from number one, on the ground of desertion. It was a race for a divorce. Both came up about the same time. Number two secured his decree. She was granted separation from number one, but the decree was not signed. Having lost number two she had not pressed the matter. She was soon thankful for a husband, for she, with still another married man, was prosecuted upon the charge of an offence which might open the doors of the penitentiary to them both. For tunately, at the eleventh hour, she discovered that she still had a husband left, and setting up the argument that he alone could prosecute her on the charge preferred against her, she was discharged. Lord Halsburv, the succession to whose shoes is just now a topic of much interest in legal circles, is, says To-Day, as averse to to bacco in any form as Mr. Swinburne. When he was at the Bar, too, he was a great stickler for professional etiquette, and by these two traits hangs a tale. Montagu Williams, who was often his junior, was once at Shrewsbury with him in that capacity, and, according to cus tom, the counsel engaged in the case dined to gether. After dinner Williams brought out his cigar case, but to his dismay Giffard took per emptory objection to anyone smoking in the room, and, as by professional etiquette he was master of the situation, his junior had to forego his weed. But he got even with his leader. The future Chancellor made a point of never starting breakfast till his junior came down, but if he detested tobacco, Montagu Williams had no affection for breakfast, and the next morning the latter deferred his appearance till there was only time to get to court. When he got down he found Giffard in a fury, having punctiliously refrained from beginning breakfast. To his leader's reproaches the junior pleaded that he couldn't eat breakfast. "Why," retorted Gif fard, " you're the most selfish fellow I ever came across." "No, no," said Williams, " you forget the smoking last night." Giffard at once gave in, and that night Williams smoked with out demur. Senator James A. Trewin' of Cedar Rapids.

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Iowa, has just finished a case, which has the record of being the longest ever tried in the Linn County district court, that came to him through a most peculiar and novel incident. The man who walks away from a hotel with the wrong hat is generally looked upon and thought of with anything but a genial disposition, but when about a year ago Horace Innman, the noted inventor, fitted Mr. Trewin's hat to his head and sauntered forth, he came back to prove a blessing to the worthy lawyer. The hat epi sode was the cause of an introduction and a warm acquaintance. The inventor explained that any man who had a head the size of his must be able to handle his matters, and he accord ingly turned over to Mr. Trewin a case entitled the Innman Manufacturing Company v. the American Cereal Company, involving a question of compensation in the sum of about $50,000 for machinery sold by the plaintiff to the defend ant. The case was begun on May 26, and the jury was instructed June 30. The following amusing story is told of Timo thy Coffin, who was for a long time judge of the New Bedford, Massachusetts, district. When a very young man he was retained in a case of sufficient importance to bring out almost every resident of the town; so that the little New Bedford court-house was packed when court was opened that morning. Coffin had been secured as counsel by the defendant. Although it was his first attempt in open court, he had made little or no preparation, thinking that he could get through somehow or other when the time came. Thus,' when the counsel for the defendant came into court that morning, he was greatly surprised and no less agitated to see the big crowd and realize the wide public interest in the trial at hand. He saw that he had looked upon the case too lightly. The prosecution was strong, and he had made not even a slight preparation. To lose the case meant a loss of a hoped-for reputation. Could he afford to commit this blunder by dis playing his ignorance of the case? How could he get out of it? These were a few of the ques tions that are known to have flashed through the young lawyer's head, for afterward he himself told of the awful perplexity of the hour. Being a shrewd inventor, he devised a plan. As soon