704
THE GREEN BAG
the palm of his hand, he turned to the judge and said: ' Yer honer, there is my name. There is pay for Patrick and pay for Powers.'" —Boston Herald, Divorce Law Suggestion. — A clergyman was railing against divorce. " We ought to have the divorce law that was enforced in ancient Greece," he said. " If that old Greek clause was tacked to every separation, I am per suaded that divorces would fall off sixty to seventy per cent. "This law was that, when a man got a divorce, he could not under any circumstances marry another woman younger than his exwife. "An innocent law, a brief law — not much to look at — but how many divorce suits would be nipped in the bud if all husbands knew that after the separation they could not marry younger women than the wives they had cast off? " — Philadelphia Bulletin. The Perils of Marriage. — " Worried " writes in the Birmingham Post (Monday): — "I married a widow, who had a grownup daugh ter. My father visited our house very often, fell in love with my step-daughter, and mar ried her; so my father became my son-in-law and my step-daughter my mother, because she was my father's wife. Some time after my wife had a son. He was my father's brother-in-law and my uncle, for he was the brother of my step-mother. My father's wife — i.e., my step-daughter — had also a son. He was, of course, my brother, and also my grandchild, for he was the son of my daughter. My wife was my grandmother, because she was my father's wife's (that is, my mother's) mother. So I am at the same time the hus band and grandchild of my wife, and as the husband of a person's grandmother is his grandfather, it seems that I have become my own grandfather." Next! — The late Ex-Governor Robinson used to tell a story in which he acknowledged that the only witness who ever made him throw up his hands and leave the court room was a green Irishman. Mr. Robinson, at the time, was counsel for one of the big railroads. A section hand had been killed by an express train and his widow was suing for damages. The railroad had a
good case, but Mr. Robinson made the mistake of trying to turn the main witness inside out. The witness, in. his quaint way, had given a graphic description of the fatality, occasion ally shedding tears and calling on the saints. Among other things he swore positively the locomotive whistle was not sounded until after the whole train had passed over his departed friend. Then Mr. Robinson thought he had him. "See here, Mr. McGinnis," said Mr. Robin son, " you admit that the whistle blew." "Yes, sor, it blew, sor." "Now, if that whistle sounded in time to give Michael warning, the fact would be in favor of the company, wouldn't it?" "Yes, sor, and Mike would be testifying here this day." The jury giggled. "Never mind that. You were Mike's friend, and you would like to help his widow, but just tell me now what earthly purpose there could be for the engineer to blow that whistle after Mike had been struck?" "I presume that the whistle wor for the nixt man on the thrack, sor." Mr. Robinson retired, and the widow got all she asked for. — Boston Herald. Items of Needed Legislation. — For instance, there ought to be a law prohibiting the crush ing of mint in the compilation of a julep. There ought to be a law forbidding the use of the doggerel known as " baby " talk, or "goo-goo " talk, to infants, on the ground that it retards the progress of young Ameri cans in the mastery of real English. It ought to be declared a felony for anyone at the theater to tell his companion " what's coming next." A law should declare it perfectly proper for a clergyman to say something besides "Fudge " when he hits at a golf ball and plows up a ton of earth. It should be illegal for a preacher to reiter ate his text more than fifty times in the course of one sermon, or to go higher than the " thirtiethly " in his enumeration of points to be made. It should be against the law for any group of women to discuss the servant problem more than one hour at a time without a change of subject, unless they first obtain a written permission of the President of the United States. — Louisville Courier-Journal.
