wrapped in its black-letter swaddling-clothes, was rocked in a cumbrous cradle of folio abridgments and reports. To read such a list is restful and soothing to the mind, exhausted with nineteenth-century hurry and turmoil.
LEGAL ANTIQUITIES.
The following interesting document, copied from Norfolk County, Mass. Records, liber 27, fol. 28, possesses a touch of quaintness which our readers will appreciate:—
I, Uriah Harding of Medway, in the County of Norfolk, of lawfull age, do testify and say that I was with Nahum Thayer some time in the month of June, a. d. 1805, and som conversation took place between us about a hive of bees that was stole from Micah Adams, which said Adams laid to said Thayer of steeling and had searched his house for. Thayer then said to me the matters is now a coming out that the neighbours would know to the contrary and it is somebody that stole them bees that will hurt your feelings most Darnedly! I then asked Thayer who it was that stole them. Thayer then said to me by God it was Simon Plimpton that stole them bees and I can Prove it and I mean to bring him up for I won't bear the scandal any longer; I have suffered enough by them Plagy bees, and further Deponant say not.
Uriah Harding.
Question asked by Simon Plimpton. Did you understand Nahum Thayer to say that Simon Plimpton stole the very hive of bees which Micah Adams searched Thayer's house for by Deponant. Answer—Nahum Thayer did tell me that Simon Plimpton stole that very hive of bees and that he could prove it.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Norfolk ss. Town of Medway this ninth day of September in the year of our lord one thousand eight hundred and six, personally appeared before us the subscriber two Justices of the Peace in and for the County of Norfolk quorum unus the aforesd deponant and after being carefully examined and duly cautioned to testify the whole truth and nothing but the truth made oath that the foregoing deposition by him subscribed is true. Taken at the request of Simon Plimpton of said Medway to be preserved in perpetual remembrance of the thing—and we duly notified all persons living within twenty miles of this place of caption we knew to be interested in the writ of the sute to which this deposition relates and no person attended but said Plimpton the said Deponant being so infirm as to be unabel to travel and attend at the Court at present in the course of taking this deposition.
| John Whiting, | Justices of the Peace quorum unus. | |
| Elijah Adams, |
The Costs of this Deposition:
| Justices fees for notifying | |
| Traveling, Writing &c | $3.16 |
| Officers fees | .54 |
| Deponant attendance | .33 |
Sept. 12, 1806. Received, entered and examined
By Eliphalet Pond, Regr.
FACETIÆ.
It was a constable who remarked pleasantly that he had an attachment for his victim.
Baron Martin, who was a great connoisseur in horses, always had the greatest horror of what were called "prophets," a class of Sharpers who profess to give weak-minded men who are given to betting "the straight tip."
On one occasion, after he had become deaf, he was trying a racing case, an exercise of his functions in which he delighted. One of the counsel engaged in it was named Stammers,—a solemn, formal, sententious personage, who seldom made a speech without quoting passages from Scripture. In addressing the jury he was about to pursue his old habit, and got as far as "as the prophet says," when the judge interposed,—
"Don't trouble the jury, Mr. Stammers, about the prophets; there is not one of them who would not sell his father for sixpenny worth of halfpence."
"But, my lord," said Stammers, in a subdued tone, "I was about to quote from the prophet Jeremiah."
"Don't tell me! " said the Baron. "I have no doubt your friend Mr. Myer is just as bad as the rest of them."—Bench and Bar.
It was a New York lawyer in whose peroration this occurred: "I hope, gentlemen of the jury, that you may have mercy upon this unhappy man, who has never yet strayed from the path of rectitude, and only asks your assistance to enable him to return to it."
