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Editorial Department.

hair, hide, horns, hoofs, and all." the plaintiff his pound of flesh.

The jury gave

cost, said cost amounted to $6.72. and the said fine has been paid to me. Given under my hand, this 6th day of January, A.D. 1893.

ALTHOUGH the Canadian Bar incline to ape in court the heavy decorum of their English brethren, they are sometimes guilty of the crime of joking among themselves, as the following incident estab lishes beyond peradventure : — During the recent trial of the Rideau Canal Case (Sparks' Heirs v. The Queen) before Mr. Justice Burlidge in the Exchequer Court at Ottawa, a professional wag remarked to a brother lawyer that "This Sparks matter seems to have emitted some burning questions." " Yes, was the prompt reply; "the case deserves to be placed among the ScinJuris."

NOTES.

IN Minnesota justices of the peace are required to report all criminal actions commenced before them to the county attorneys of their respective counties. The following are reports of justices of the peace to the County Attorney of Olmsted County for the year 1892 : — I am happy to inform you that since my appoint ment as Justice of the Peace of have had neither a criminal or a civil suit, and am in hopes that the same rush of business will continue through the term, as it is a class of business that I dislike, as 1 am not qualified, neither am I competent. Practi cal experience teaches me of this fact; for instance, I officiated two years as justice. In that time I is sued two summons, got sued three times myself, married two couple, and neither of them stuck. Respectfully, , J. P. STATE OF MINNESOTA I COUNTY OF OLMSTED. ( At a Justice's court, held at my office in said County, before me, , a justice of the peace in and for said county, for the trial of , for the offence hereinafter stated, the said was convicted of having on the 4th day of December, A.D. 1892, at Kalmar, in said county, did feloneously take a halter off from a horse at night, in the stable of & belonging too the said & make off with the said halter, and upon such conviction, the said court should did pay adjudge a fine andofdetermine three dollars that ($3) the said and

Justice of the Peace.

THE "Reconstruction" Constitution of 1868 abolished the different forms of action in the old North State, and reduced them all to one; but "befoah the wah " it was the easy practice of counsel to bring cases to an issue by a mere mem orandum entered on the docket. Miss Margaret Patterson, of Cumberland County, was an elderly maiden lady of means, who found occasion to bring against William McKay an action of trespass on the case. McKay's counsel was a certain wag gish Mr. Winslow, who observed, on looking over the appearance docket at the opening of term, that plaintiff's attorney, Mr. Troy, had not entered the usual memorandum. He thereupon entered defendant's appearance, and wrote this effusion upon the docket : — "Billy McKay, for his satisfaction, Demands of Miss Margaret the cause of her action, And wants to know why, in this public place, She has undertaken to sue him in case."

When Mr. Troy discovered this demand for a bill of particulars, he wrote beneath it as follows : "Miss Margaret replies with a kind of a snigger : ' Why, Billy, you know you converted my nigger, — Converted him, not to the God of the sinner, But converted to cash. — and you are the winner; So, having received, and failed to pay over, You therefore are sued in an action of Trover.'"

IN a recent case in Massachusetts the evidence showed that a young gentleman of twenty and " a maid of seventeen " summers went to ride together in a buggy. " Their horse took fright, ran with them, and was stopped by turning into a yard, and against a barn belonging to a clergyman legally qualified to solemnize marriages" (a fact of which the horse, from his conduct, must be presumed to have been cognizant). The gentleman said casu ally, like Mr. Wemmick in " Great Expectations," '• This would be a good time to be married; and the lady readily assenting, it was done. It is need less, perhaps, to add that proceedings for a divorce were the natural and early result.