arms and lost the day. This method of trial was principally confined to disputes about property; and the most celebrated instance of its being resorted to occurred in France during the reign of Pepin, when the Archbishop of Paris and the Abbot of St. Denis disputing about the patronage of a monastery, the king ordered that their respective champions should resort to this method of deciding the question. Both appeared in the chapel attached to the monastery, and held out for an almost incredible time; the spectators, we are told, betting as to their respective abilities. The bishop's champion first gave in, and the Archbishop of Paris consequently won the day.
For some reason, altogether undiscoverable to us at the present day, indictments in the olden times were universally drawn out in ab breviated Latin, a misspelling in which, how ever unimportant in other respects, was deemed sufficient to destroy the instrument. It was indeed a rule with the lawyers of that time that no word which could be expressed in Latin should in an indictment be written in English; and we continually find such documents being set aside for breaches of this regulation. In one case the term " witchcraft " rendered the in strument void, " incantatio " being deemed the correct word; and in another " de la Fabre" was declared inadmissible in any other garb than a Latin one. So with misspelling, — a man was indicted in Elizabeth's reign for murder; some unfortunate clerk spelled the word " destructionem " " destrictionem," and the error being discovered, the prisoner was immediately acquitted. More recently " deodecim " occur ring for "duodecem" invalidated the instrument; and " praesentant " for " pragsentatum" had a similar effect.
The great danger which was thus continually encountered — on the one hand, of placing in indictments English words which might be expressed in Latin, and on the other, of introducing Latin words not of sufficiently general acceptation to be used in an instrument the meaning of which was to be patent to every one — led to the custom of using an Anglicè when any doubtful Latin word occurred. Thus in one old indictment we read of a man stealing certain "ollas ararias — Anglicè, ' brass pots.'"
FACETIÆ.
A prisoner who had been convicted at least a dozen times, was placed at the bar.
"Your Honor, I should like to have my case continued for a week; my lawyer is ill."
"But you were captured with your hand in this gentleman's pocket. What can your counsel say in your defence?"
"Precisely so, your Honor; that is what I am curious to know."
Legal annals could furnish many instances of quite as queer excuses pleaded by the accused as the following. The widow of a French chemist, famous for his researches in toxicology, was on trial for poisoning her husband. It was proved that arsenic was the medium employed.
"Why did you use that poison?" asked the presiding magistrate.
"Because," sobbed the fair culprit, " it was the one he liked best."
An Irishman not long since was summoned before a bench of county magistrates for being drunk and disorderly.
"Do you know what brought you here?" was the question put to him.
"Faix, yer Honor, two policemen," replied the prisoner.
"Had not drink something to do with bring ing you here? " said the magistrate, frowning.
"Sortinly," answered Pat, unabashed; " they were both drunk."
An elderly gentleman, who knew something of law, lived in an Irish village where no solicitor had ever penetrated, and was in the habit of arranging the disputes of his neighbors and making their wills. At an early hour one morning he was aroused from his slumbers by a loud knocking at the gate, and putting his head out of the window, he asked who was there.
"It's me, yer Honor, — Paddy Flaherty. I could not get a wink of sleep thinking of the will I have made."
"What's the matter with the will?" said the amateur lawyer.
"Matter indeed!" replied Pat; "sure I've not left myself a three-legged stool to sit down upon! " — Montreal Legal News.
