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The Green Bag
tense silence straightened up and re peated, "Not guilty, sir." Another intense silence followed, and then the young officer thundered : "Not guilty! All right! Cornelius Prove itJohnson. then."
TOO MUCH FORESIGHT A LAWYER in Kansas City was not long ago retained by an Irish con tractor to draw up his will. The task was accomplished apparently to the satisfaction of the Celt; the lawyer's fee was paid; and the latter supposed, of course, that the matter had been concluded. To his great surprise, there fore, he received another call from his client the next day, who expressed his conviction that the affair had not been properly adjusted. "Why, what's the trouble?" asked the legal light. "Trouble enough," said the Irishman. "I didn't sleep the whole night through for thinkin' of that damned will. You've fixed it so I've not left myself a chair to sit on! CORPORATION COLOR A CLEVELAND lawyer tells of a case that came before the Ohio courts involving the disposition of cer tain building lots. Originally sale had been made on the condition that no land in the division should be sold to a negro. One buyer was very much enraged when he ascertained that, later, many of the lots had been disposed of to a corpora tion composed entirely of negroes. Suit was immediately brought by this buyer. The defendant sought to justify his action on the ground that the land
had not been sold to a colored person, but to a corporation. The other side, through its counsel, retorted with the statement that, since a corporation was a person in law, then if its members were all negroes, it could with the utmost propriety be termed a colored person. It looked as if this argument might prevail, when the defendant came forward with this hypothetical case for the court's consideration : — "If the corporation had been com posed half of white men and half of negroes, could it then have been con sidered a mulatto?" This turned the tide, and defendant lost.
A CANDID WITNESS IN a town of upper New York they tell of a certain Deacon Potter, a man of great eccentricity but high moral character. This deacon would tell the truth and shame the devil. On one occasion a friend was engaged in a law suit in regard to some land a few miles from Utica. He held the land at a high price. During the trial he called the deacon as a witness, to prove how valuable the land was. The deacon was sworn and asked if he knew the land. "I know every foot of it," he said. "Very good. What do you think of it?" The deacon paused for a moment as if to make sure that he would return an appropriately emphatic reply, and then said : — "If I has as many dollars as my yoke of oxen could draw on a sled on glaze ice I would not give a dollar an acre for it."
The Editor will be glad to receive for this department anything likely to entertain the readers of the Green Bag in the way of legal antiquities, facetiee, and anecdotes.
