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the Grand Jury over again, explaining paragraph by paragraph, what he meant in his former charge. The student Taylor, when brought before the Grand Jury, declined to answer any questions relating to the affair in question upon the grounds stated before the Coroner's Jury, and was thereupon promptly committed by Judge Forbes to the county jail for contempt of court. His counsel obtained his release upon bail from Justices Smith and Parker by writ of habeas corpus, and a writ of Certiorari to review the proceedings upon which he had been committed. The General Term reversed the deci sion, but Chief Judge Charles Andrews of the Court of Appeals granted a stay, pending an appeal to the Court of Appeals — this being the second time in the history of the State that the Chief Judge has granted a stay in a criminal case. There the matter rests, and the incident is un doubtedly closed.
It is generally believed that the students would have made a clean breast of the whole affair and taken a punishment fitted to the crime as they regarded it — a fine or short imprisonment — but the newspapers said so much about murder, electrocution and death chair, that they closed their mouths tighter than an oyster. Ithaca, JV.Y. Murray E. Poole.
LEGAL ANTIQUITIES. Our "pious forefathers" were apt to be rather hard toward those who annoyed them with their tongue and pen. In Massachusetts in 1 63 1, one Philip Ratcliffe was sentenced by the Assistants to pay ^40, to be whipped, to have his ears cropped, and to be banished. To merit this punishment, he had made " hard speeches against the Salem Church as well as the Government."
FACETIÆ. The late Admiral Bailey was once cited as a witness in a civil law suit, an ordeal to which he was totally unaccustomed; but he had read about judges and juries, anil had conceived an extrava gant idea of the solemn position of a witness upon the stand. This impression was confirmed by the proffered warnings of some of his nautical friends, who cautioned him to beware of the tricks of the lawyers, who did not go about their business in the straightforward way of courts-
martial, but were always intent upon making a witness contradict himself, and thus convict him of being a liar and a perjurer. Nothing could be more calculated to alarm the conscientious old salt than the prospect of having his own word questioned by himself. He could not sleep, and he lost his appetite, until the day of trial. At last it came, and he was called to the stand. The first question asked after being sworn, — a process which did not trouble him, but rather gave him confidence, as he was accustomed to an occasional oath — was : — "What is your name?" Here was a matter for deep reflection and for a study of the probable disposition of the lawyer to make him forswear himself. He carefully weighed every consideration in his mind, and was seem ingly lost in abstraction until the question was repeated, sharply and incisively : — "What is your name, sir?" There was no more time allowed for reflection, and the answer was jerked out of him like the spasmodic heavings of the capstan on breaking ground : —
"The-o-do-rus Bailey — or word's to that effect." And he added, after a long breath, " If that's perjury, make the most of it. I won't say another word to criminate mvself!"
When Judge Clark, now on the Supreme Court of North Carolina, was on the circuit court bench, he was a stickler for always opening court punctually on Mondays. Having to open court at Oxford, in January, 1886, when he got to Henderson, he found a deep snow on the ground, and the railroad from that place to Oxford in those days did not run in such weather. So the Judge set out in a buggy with a driver all whose customers had theietofore been "commercial tourists." He took the Judge for a drummer and tried to beguile the tedium by talking over the " hardware " line. Not finding him exactly well posted on that, he took up the " dry goods" business. Not doing much better with that, he successively tried him on " notions," " groceries," "liquors" and others. Having exhausted all the " lines " he could think of he finally asked : "You are a drummer, are you not?" — "Yes," said the Judge, " I am somewhat in that line." "Well, what is your line?" said the driver. " I
