488
The Green Bag
The abuses arising from the use of tobacco also attracted the attention of the Court. The law-makers ordered that no person under the age of twenty years, nor any one unaccustomed to its use, should take the weed until he had obtained "a certificate under the hand of some who are approved, for knowledge and skill in phieicke, that it is useful for him, and that he has received licence from the Court for the same." An order was also passed for "the regulating of those who had already made it necessary for their use," which ordained "that no man in the colony shall take any tobacco publicly in the street, nor in the field or woods, unless when traveling at least ten miles, or at the ordinary time of repast, commonly called dinner; or if it be not then taken, yet not above once in the day at most, and then, not in company with any other." The constables were directed to pre sent the names of such as transgressed the act to the Court.
"Because, your Honor," said the wily attorney, "I haven't heard the other two questions!" TECHNICAL TERMS HOW every calling has its technical vocabulary is illustrated by a story a Boston lawyer tells of an old horse man in Maine who had run over a man and was being sued for damages. The Court asked the defendant if he was driving fast. He answered, "I was going a pace." The Court then said, "Now kindly tell the gentlemen of the jury just how fast you were going." "Well," said the defendant, "I reckon I was going a clip." "Will you kindly tell the jury howfast a clip is?" "Well, it's going a dite." "Will you tell the jury how fast a dite is?" "Well, a dite's a dite. Anybody knows what a dite is." IT ISN'T HE WAS always PREPARED that a witness is
NOT TO BE CAUGHT A JUSTICE of the Supreme Court of New York has a habit, well known to old practitioners before him, of ask ing three questions of counsel arguing at the bar. The first question is usually a simple one — the lawyer answers care lessly; the second question is a little more difficult — the respondent answers with some uncertainty; the third ques tion is bound to be a "poser" fraught with humiliation. On one occasion, when a lawyer who was quite familiar with his Honor's little habit was presenting a most im portant case, he replied in answer to the first question : — "I don't know." "Don't know?" said his Honor. "Why don't you know?"
prepared for all eventualities in court," says a New York lawyer, "but there was one trial in which I was inter ested at which a certain witness did certainly show his foresight. "This man had been an eye-witness to a shooting, and his evidence was, therefore, most important. When, after direct examination, he was turned over to the prosecution for cross-examination, he showed at the outset that he was a match for his interrogator. "You will tell the Court," said the prosecutor, "just how far you were from the spot where the defendant stood when he fired the shot." "Just ten and one-half feet," answered the witness without the slightest hesi tation.
