478
The Green Bag
Gray, Cowper, Macaulay, R. D. Blackmore, Stevenson, Sir W. S. Gilbert, Calverley, Stan ley Weyman, and Anthony Hope are among the members of the Bar who might have been lost to literature if the practical wisdom of Mr. Birrell's advice had always been recog nized. —London Law Journal. ATTRACTIVE JAILS SOMETHING needs to be done to make our jails less attractive, when a prisoner serving a six months term in Ludlow street jail, New York, for contempt of court in refusing to pay alimony to his first wife, is moved to talk to the newspapers in this strain:— "I came here on April 1. In four months I have accomplished what I have been trying to find time to do all my life. I have read practically every one of Balzac's novels. I have also brushed up on the Elizabethan dramatists and read many lighter books and magazines. In no other place except another jail could I find time for this reading. I should advise every young man who wishes to go through a course of home study, and finds it impossible under his circumstances, to get in contempt of court and be sent to this jail for six months or a year." If the opportunity for self-improvement wholly outweighs the penalty of social dis grace, as this sculptor-prisoner seems to think, to maintain schools and jails is a foolish waste, when one can do the work of both. LEGAL DEFINITION OF "ROOTERS" AFRIEND in Winnipeg writes July 29, 1909, to the Green Bag as follows:— Legal "rooters" and "fans" may be inter ested in a recent legal definition of a rooter formulated by His Lordship Mr. Justice Riddell of the High Court of Justice of On tario, in the case of Stewart v. Cobalt Curling and Skating Association, 14 Ontario Weekly Reporter 171. The action was for damages caused to a spectator at a hockey match by the breaking of a rail upon which a large number of spectators were leaning to watch the progress of a fight. His Lordship said, "The plaintiff paid for a seat in one of the galleries, at the 'rooters' ' end—'rooters,' as I understand it, being those spectators who are most enthusiastic." . . . Incidentally, his Lordship remarked that a hockey match
was a place where a "row might be expected to take place." The plaintiff got $850 damages and costs. OF WITNESSES SPEAKING of witnesses at the annual meeting of the Tennessee Bar Associa tion, Col. W. A. Henderson, general counsel for the Southern Railway, said:— "The usual witness wants to tell the truth. There is not so much perjury in the courts as the public believes. I don't know how i happened to get abroad, but the impression prevails with every witness that he is on the side of the lawyer who summoned him. Hence he is unconsciously partisan. Beware of the willing witness. Don't introduce your witnesses alphabetically. And don't ask, 'Who's the next witness?' or say, 'Call the next witness.' Know who they are and call them. "The most ignorant person in all the world is a young lawyer examining a witness. The young lawyer is then 'It,' and he can't see anybody but himself. Beware of asking too many questions. Try to put the one ques tion which will bring the answer you want. I had a case up in Fentress county. One of the witnesses was a woman who wouldn't answer any question satisfactorily. She was reluctant to tell the truth. When she was turned over to me, I said, 'Madam, you swore when you came on this stand to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, didn't you?' 'Yes, sir, I did,' she snapped. ' Well, Madam, may I ask whether you have done so?' 'Yes, sir, I have,' she retorted, 'and I had a legal right to do so.'" JUDGE BREWER'S STATUS MR. JUSTICE BREWER'S explanation of the situation in the Supreme Court, in his speech at Milwaukee, should cheer the suffragette. Said he:— "There are four men on the supreme bench who could retire. I told my wife I should retire because the statute said I could do so. "'I don't care what the statute says; you can't do it.' she said. That seemed to settle my status." It seems also to settle the power woman exercises over the law in the United States, despite the restriction of the franchise under which some of the sex chafe a little. — Boston Record.
