under the Statute 3 and 4 William III. Mr. Kirwan being in the chair was obliged, though dissenting, to pronounce the judgment of the court, which was as follows: "My good man, you have been found guilty by the majority, and not by the minority of the bench, under a statute of William III., of the very desperate offence of selling apples on a Sunday. You are not aware, very likely, of who William III. was, because you are only a common appleman; but if you were an orangeman you'd know it. You must understand that their worships don't like people eating apples on a Sunday, although 't is very likely that some of them, however pious, will have an apple-pie for dinner next Sunday. And now, as you have been summoned under a certain Act, you'll be punished under that Act; and I sentence you under that Act to be put in the stocks for the next two hours; and"—turning to a brother magistrate—"I don't think there are any stocks in the town; and if there are not, you must be discharged." And discharged he was.
"Prisoner at the bar," said a judge at the Central Criminal Court, "if ever there was a clearer case than this of a man robbing his master, this case is that case." Don't let us talk about Irish bulls after this, for this John Bull takes the cake.
Not quite so good or so bad as this was his sentence on another occasion. "Prisoner at the bar, there are mitigating circumstances in this case that induce me to take a lenient view of it, and I will therefore give you a chance of redeeming a character that you have irretrievably lost."
The same judge is related by Serjeant Robinson to have addressed a prisoner as follows: "Prisoner at the bar, you have been found guilty on several indictments, and it is in my power to subject you to transportation for a period very considerably beyond the term of your natural life; but the Court, in its mercy, will not go so far as it lawfully might go, and the sentence is that you be transported for two periods of seven years each."
To the same authority we are indebted for the following authenticated story of the late Mr. Justice Maule on a question of costs: "This seems to me quite a novel application," said the learned judge. "I am asked to declare what amounts to this, that in an action by A against B, C, who seems to have less to do with the case than even I have, ought to pay the costs. I do not believe that any such absurd law has ever been laid down, although, it is true, I have not yet seen the last number of the Queen's Bench Reports."—Pump Court.
Away on a bend of the Upper Missouri twenty-eight lawyers practised the Iowa Code. It so happened that supplies were short at Fort Randall, and a government team came over the prairie for coffee and corn. There were some old scores unsettled in the town, and the creditor resolved to "get secured." The leader of the bar looked it up in the Code, and filled out attachment blanks, in which it was sworn that "he had reason to believe, and did believe, the said United States were about to leave the country to defraud their creditors."
An American judge once reprimanded a lawyer for bringing several small suits into court; remarking that it would have been better for the parties in each case had he persuaded them to submit the matter in controversy to the arbitration of some two or three honest men.
"Please your Honor," retorted the lawyer, "we did not choose to trouble honest men with them."
An advocate, seeing that there was no longer any use in denying certain charges against his client, suddenly changed his plan of battle, in order to arrive at success in another way.
"Well, be it so," he said; "my client is a scoundrel, and the worst liar in the world."
Here he was interrupted by the judge, who remarked, "Brother B, you are forgetting yourself."
Lord Norbury, walking to court one morning, saw a crowd on the quay, near the Four Courts. He inquired the cause, and was informed a tailor had just been rescued from attempting suicide by drowning. "What a fool," responded the Chief-Justice, "to leave his hot goose for a cold duck!"
Lawyer. I have my opinion of you.
Citizen. Well, you can keep it. The last opinion I got from you cost me $150.
