Sir jfonah Barringtoris " Sketches" really was!' ' My lord,' replied Billy Harris most sententiously, rising at the same mo ment and casting a despairing glance toward the bench, ' if I possessed that knowledge I protest to God I would tell your lordship with a great deal of pleasure.' ' Then we 'll save the point, Billy Harris! ' exclaimed the judge." Our author also relates the anecdote of a more modern justice of the Irish King's Bench, who, in giving his dictum on a cer tain will case, said, "he thought it very clear that the testator intended to keep a life-interest in the estate to himself." The bar did not laugh outright, but Curran soon rendered that consequence inevitable by say ing, " Very true, my lord! Testators gen erally do secure life-interests to themselves; but in this case I rather think your lordship takes the will for the deed!" Baron Power, who held the office of usher of the Court of Chancery, and whom Sir Jonah describes as " a morose, fat fellow, affecting to be genteel, but very learned, very rich, and very ostentatious," driven to desperation by the continual persecutions of Lord Clare, then Chancellor, committed sui cide by drowning. Mark the airy and SirLucius-O'Trigger style of our author in describing the event : " The baron walked quietly down early one fine morning to the South wall, which runs into the sea, about two miles from Dublin. There he very deliberately filled his coat-pockets with peb bles; and having accomplished that busi ness, as deliberately walked into the ocean, which, however, did not retain him long, for his body was thrown ashore with great con tempt by the tide. The Lord Chancellor enjoyed the double gratification of destroy ing a baron and recommending a more sub missive officer in his place." According to Sir Jonah, the precedent was too respectable and inviting not to be fol lowed, as a judge drowning himself gave the thing a sort of dignified legal hlat; and shortly afterward one Mr. Morgal, a Dublin attorney, committed suicide in a precisely similar way.
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"Mr. Morgal, then an attorney residing in Dublin (of large dimensions, and with shin-bones curved like the segment of a rainbow), had for good and sufficient rea sons long appeared rather dissatisfied with himself and other people. But as attorneys were considered much more likely to induce their neighbors to cut their throats than to execute that office upon themselves, nobody ever suspected Morgal of any intention to shorten his days in a voluntary manner." He did, however, as above stated, and as our author playfully remarks, " committed himself in due form into the hands of Father Neptune, who took equal care of him as he had done with the baron; and after having suffocated him so completely as to defy the exertions of the Humane Society, sent his body floating ashore, to the full as bloated and buoyant as Baron Power's had been." Sir Jonah facetiously observes that he does not recollect that any attorneys immediately followed the unfortunate Mr. Morgal's ex ample, but that four or five of his clients very shortly after started from this world of their own accord, to try, as people then said, if they could in any way overtake Morgal, who had left them no "conveniences" for staying long behind him. Apropos of attorneys he relates the anec dote of a suitor in the Court of Exchequer who complained in person to the Chief Baron that he was quite " ruinated " and could go no further. His lordship suggested that the matter be decided by reference. To this the suitor agreed, saying, "I am willing, please your lordship, to leave it all either to one honest man or two attorneys, whichever your lordship pleases " " You had better toss up for that," said the Chief Baron (Lord Yelverton), laughing. Two attorneys were how ever appointed, and in less than a year reported that " they could not agree." The parties then agreed upon an honest farmer, who settled the whole matter to their satis faction within a week. Shortly afterward they came into court with the good news, hand in hand, and thanked Lord Yelverton,
