Apropos of amateur advocacy, a good story is told of one of our chancery judges. A plaintiff appeared in person before him in a case arising out of a bill of sale, which included, besides some other personal chattels, a quantity of household furniture. After addressing the court at inordinate length upon the first class of articles, the plaintiff went on to say, " And now, my Lord, I will ad dress myself to the furniture." " You have been doing that for a long time past," replied the jaded judge.
dire. She could make nothing of the phrases, '• nature of an oath," " religious responsibility," and so forth, used by counsel; and at last Alderson said, '• I will put it to the witness very simply; my little girl, if you tell a lie here, do you know where you will go hereafter?" "No, sir," replied the child. " No more do I! " muttered the Baron, aside; and then turning to the witness, " I am afraid you must stand down."
This reminds us of an anecdote told at the ex pense of Sergeant Prime, who was a good-natured but rather dull man, and, as an advocate, weari some beyond comparison. A counsel once get ting up to reply to one of his lengthy orations, which had made the jury very drowsy, began : "Gentlemen, after the long speech of the learned Sergeant — " " Sir, I beg your pardon," interrupted Mr. Justice Nares; " you might say. after the long soliloquy; for my brother Prime lias been talking an hour to himself."
NOTES.
The Chicago Legal Neivs. in reviewing Beach on Wills, puts forth the following curious idea : " The usefulness of many law works is injured by an undiscriminating over-citation of authorities." The reviewer probably meant that the usefulness of many law works is injured by an indiscriminate citation of authorities. There can be no such thing as an over-citation of authorities in a legal treatise, provided the authorities are in point. I The citation of an additional case in support of While we are on this subject, here is another I a proposition from the court of last resort of the smallest jurisdiction, like Delaware or Rhode Island, story which will bear repeating : — A lawyer having wearied the court by a long will afford assistance to lawyers in that jurisdiction. The time has gone by when lawyers will accept as and dull argument, the judge suggested the ex law, except on the most obvious propositions, the pediency of his bringing it to a close. "I shall speak as long as I please," was the statements of authors not well fortified by the citation of authorities. angry retort. "You have already spoken longer than you please," answered the judge. Exactly how to sentence a criminal to death under the new law is at present puzzling the crimi nal court judges. The following form possesses "Do you mean to challenge the jury?" whis the value of being terse, scientific, and to the pered a lawyer to his Irish client. " Yis, be jab bers! If they don't acquit me, I mean to challenge point : " I therefore sentence you to be taken to ivery spalpeen of them. I want ye to give 'em all Sing Sing Prison, there to remain confined until the — day of , 188 —, between the hours a hint of it, too." of — and —, a. m., where you will be taken to a An Indiana colored lawyer, in trying to get his cell specially designed for that purpose, be forcibly client out of custody, exclaimed : " Da is a law seated in a properly insulated chair, with one se dat 's called ' habhis carcass,' an' I 'ze gwine to maphore placed upon the junction of your frontal hab de carcass ob dat client ob mine, dea' or and parietal suturas and the other just over your medulla oblongata, and then and there made con alive!" ductor for an alternating current of 1,800 volts' in The following anecdote of Baron Alderson is, tensity from a dynamo constructed for that specific we think, not generally known. It must be pre purpose, said current to pass through the ganglia mised that his lordship was suspected of being a and vasomotor centres of your cerebral tissue until bit of a freethinker. A child of tender years you are dead, dead, dead : and may the Lord have was once being examined before him on the voir mercy on what is left of you! " — New i ork World. 12
