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must come to a stop within at least too ft. of any horse-drawn vehicle approaching from either direction."
NOTES.
THE following incident took place in the Court of Session in Edinburgh in the early part of the present century, the witness being the celebrated Dr. James Gregory, a man of very considerable learning, and at the top of his profession. To appreciate the incident, it is necessary to premise that playing-cards are generally supposed to have been invented for the amusement of the mad King Charles VII. of France. The matter at issue, in the case in which Dr. Gregory was called, was as to the mental capacity of a par ticular person; and according to the evidence of the witness, the insanity of that person was beyond dispute. On cross-examination Dr. Gregory ad mitted that the person in question played admi rably at whist. " And do you say, Doctor," asked the learned counsel, " that a person having a supe rior capacity for a game so difficult, and which requires in a pre-eminent degree memory, judg ment, and combination, can be at the same time deranged in his understanding?" " I am no cardplayer," replied the witness, with great address, "but I have read in history that cards were in vented for the amusement of an insane king." The consequences of this answer were decisive.
a judge upon the bench, and no lawyer, no matter what his merit may be, can influence, overpower, or embarrass me by any proposition of law he may state. On the contrary, the jury is bound to take the law as I lay it down, and not as counsel state it. "I believe that in this case Mr. S knows as much law as General W
- and in saying so, I mean
no disrespect to Mr. W . But I believe that I, in my judicial capacity, know as much law as both of them together, because whatever law I lay down you, gentlemen, must accept as the law, the infallible law, until a higher authority says that I am wrong. "This much I say, without any vanity on my part. I simply express myself so for the purpose of main taining the dignity and respect due to the office I hold, and not in any laudation of my own merits as an individual. "The mere fact that one of the counsel in this case happened to take more exceptions than the other must not influence you in the least. If you should hire either of these gentlemen, you would expect them to take every advantage in the trial of your case which the law gives them; and if they did not do so, you would be justified in censuring them. People employ lawyers to take every advantage of the law they can; therefore if any lawyer so employed did not perform his full duty, he would not be faithful to his client."
GROSVENOR P. LOWREY, one of the leading members of the bar of New York City, died on April 21. He was born in North Egremont, Mass., Sept. 25, 1831, his parents being William THE following instructions were recently given Lowrey, a native of Claverack, Columbia County, to the jury by a judge of one of the New York N. Y., and a descendant of an old Dutch family, City courts : — and Olive Rouse of Egremont. He received a common-school education in his native town, and "Now, the mere fact that both counsel happen to be respectable men must not influence you either completed his studies in the law department of Lafayette College, Easton, Penn., gaining admis one «ay or the other. "So far as the legal lights of the bar of this city sion to the Bar at that place in 1854. After a short sojourn in the West, Mr. Lowrey are concerned, I never heard in my experience at the bar, which was probably limited, that General returned to the East, settling in New York City in W was a leader of the bar; but whether he was 1857 for the practice of his profession. During or not (and he is as far as I know an honorable gen the greater part of the time in which he was in tleman), his law, as opposed to my view of it, is no practice he was a member of the firm of Porter, good, in my opinion, and I will not recognize his law Lowrey, Soren, & Stone, of which the senior mem until I am convinced by that authority having power ber was the late John K. Porter, previously one to set me right. I don't believe that any lawyer at of the judges of the Court of Appeals, and well the bar has a right to dictate law to me. Lawyers, it is true, have. a right to state what their views of 1 known as an advocate through his defence of the law are; but they have no right to dictate law to | Henry Ward Beecher, and of General Babcock
