574
THE GREEN BAG
principles, intelligible to none except " learned counsel;" that the Court, speaking through its decisions and thereby establishing pre cedents as regards matters juridical, must, of necessity, couch its ponderous thoughts in the most elegant terms supplied by our good old Anglo-Saxon tongue, thus giving to the world, in every opinion rendered, a literary gem which will be recognized by future genera tions as a classic of our literature. In this connection, an opinion handed down, several years ago, by the late Justice Breese, one of the ablest lawyers who ever sat on the Illinois Supreme Bench, deserves special mention. Considering the illustrious name which Judge Breese made for himself as a jurist, a gentle, decorous, little laugh at his expense ' cannot possibly work any harm, though it may cheer some struggling, ambitious young practitioner to greater efforts; however, facts are facts and rumor has it that facts are what lawyers cry for. Certainly, this characteristic of the legal mind was fully appreciated by the Court, opinion from Breese, J., in the case of Chase v. The People, 40 111, 352. They tell us that some poor unfortunate, by the name of Chase, suffered terrible persecution at the hands of The People of the State of Illinois for com mitting a murder over in Will County and — but why not let the Court explain, in its own, Inimitable way, just what happened to Brother Chase? Hear ye! Hear ye! "The homicide was charged to have been committed on the eighteenth day of April, 1864, on one Joseph Clark. "It appeared in evidence that, at the time of the killing, Clark was deputy warden in the penitentiary, and Taylor, one of the guard, went to the hall adjacent to the kitchen in the prison, and took therefrom four convicts, of whom the prisoner was one, and locked them in the cell house. The deceased then unlocked a cupboard containing handcuffs, the guard took a pair, and went to the cell door where the prisoner was, and told the prisoner deceased wanted to see him. The prisoner stepped out and asked to see the chaplain, when deceased replied, the chaplain was not there. The prisoner then threw a stone which struck deceased on the left side of his head. The deceased had a revolver. The prisoner clenched deceased, who threw his pistol
from him, calling to the guard to get it. The prisoner got the revolver first, and shot at deceased. He fired it five times. Deceased then got the pistol and placing it at prisoner's head, fired. Prisoner threw up his arms, ex claiming ' you've murdered me." The guard then handcuffed him." — It need only be explained, in conclusion, that this case "went up " to the reviewing tribunal by a process called writ of error. — C. R. S. The Whistle Blew. — A noted Iowa wit and orator having a case in court involving Union Labor where it had been intimated during the case that nothing could now be done on ac count of Union Labor and that whenever the whistle blew, the men would be all off their work and drop a brick to the pavement instead of putting it in place on the building. To counteract this accusation, the lawyer replied in a very eloquent address as follows: — " To stop work when the whistle blows reminds me of a story in my native town, through which runs a very wide and deep river. Two Swedes were walking along a bridge when one hap pened to fall off into the water. Ole knew that Hans could swim in the old country, and he was not at all excited, and as soon as he had gone down, he came up and commenced to swim to shore all right. Before he got ashore the whistle blew and my friend Ole, belonging to a Labor Union, being so accustomed to stop when the whistle blew, that he even stopped swimming and sank to the bottom without even attempting to make a move to save himself. The whistle to him had be come a sort of a reflex action, and either on work or off work it made no difference; his nervous system refused to call his muscles into play, even at the risk of saving his own life." Judicial Dignity. — A gentleman member of the Iowa bar, who even in a prohibition state is inclined to take a drop for his stomach's sake, dropped into a town one day where the mulct law is operated and took a drink or two, and from that time he knew but very little. At about seven o'clock in the evening the man about a feed bam ordered to close up and the hostler found a stranger covered up in the hay mow. He pulled at him, told him to get up, but no use, so he turned a hose on him and gave him a good ducking. The cold water coming in
