NOTES.
The "London News" quotes an American statesman, now abroad, on the deceased wife's sister bill, upon which he makes this droll comment:—
"The desire of the Englishman to marry his deceased wife's sister is one of the most curious phenomena of the times. The deceased wife's sister bill may be said to be his steady occupation. In all his breathing-spells from emergencies he turns to that. When he is not being massacred by the South Africans, or slaying Soudanese, or fighting Afghans, or pacifying the Irish, he is looking after the deceased wife's sister bill. He comes back to it out of all victories and defeats with unwavering pertinacity and courage. Seeing how attractive such an alliance seems in England, I cannot but inquire why the Englishman does not marry the wife's sister in the first place. Why does he go on marrying the wrong one, and then wait for death and the law to help him?"
One of the most extraordinary reasons which any lawyer has alleged against effecting law reforms is that assigned by the Chancellor d'Aguesseau. He was once asked by the Duke de Grammont whether he had ever thought of any regulation by which the length of suits and the chicanery practised in the courts could be terminated. "I had gone so far," said the Chancellor, "as to commit a plan for such a regulation to writing; but after I had made some progress, I reflected on the great number of advocates, attorneys, and officers of justice whom it would ruin; compassion for these made the pen fall from my hands. The length and number of lawsuits confer on gentlemen of the long robe their wealth and authority; one must continue, therefore, to permit their infant growth and everlasting endurance."
The following curious case indicates some of the difficulties India magistrates have to encounter. A Hindu was maliciously charged with the murder of his daughter Kaminee. The corpus delicti was not forthcoming. Equal, however, to any emergency, a native policeman produced "some poor fellow's skull" as that of the murdered girl! Another member of the same fraternity, animated by a laudable spirit of rivalry, brought forward a second and smaller skull. It was seriously argued that the girl's skull must be either the one skull or the other. Fortunately for the father, the girl herself arrived in the Magistrate's Court at this critical juncture. On being questioned she told a plaintive tale to the effect that she had been wooed by a Parawala (village policeman). He, finding her father obdurate, had one night secretly sent her up the country by rail, promising to follow. In answer to further questions, the girl declared that neither of the two skulls on the bench was her skull. Tableau! The father was, of course, honorably acquitted, and the wicked swain properly punished.
The "saide Lord God" occurs in the will of the father of English real property law, Sir Thomas Lyttleton: "First I bequeath my soul to Almighty God, Fader, Sonne and Hollye Ghost . . . and to our most blessed Lady and Virgin Saynt Mary, Moder of our Lord and Jesu Christ, the only begotten sonne of our saide Lord God, the Fader of Heven, and to Saint Christopher, the which our saide Lord God did truste to bere on his shoulders," etc.
It will perhaps startle the multitudinous reporters of the proceedings of our courts at the present time, to learn that there was a time when the act of reporting subjected the reporter to commitment to the Tower. The following is a free translation of a memorandum entered upon the rolls of the Exchequer of Pleas, 3 Edw. III. m. 27:—
"Whilst a plea was pending in this court between Johannes de Bourne and Ricardus de Potesgrave, it was intimated to the Barons by certain bystanders that one Lucas de Thaestead, notary public, by the Pope's authority, had been brought here by the aforesaid John to hear and explain the judicial words (verba judicialia) of the court about to be pronounced upon this process, and to make a public instrument upon the same, in contempt and disgrace, and dishonour of our lord the King and his Court, and manifest prejudice of his royal dignity.
"And the same Lucas being present, and sworn to speak the truth, says that he came here at the request of the said John to hear and testify and Reduct in a public form the judgment about to be given in court against the aforesaid Richard. Judgment is passed that the said Lucas be committed to the Tower of London."
It might be well if our courts had the power to commit some of our modern reporters for the manner in which they report judicial decisions.
