Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 09.pdf/357

This page needs to be proofread.
324
The Green Bag.

THERE are no lawyers in Korea but there are judges appointed by the king. LORD BROUGHAM defined a lawyer as " a legal gentleman who rescues your estate from your enemies and keeps it himself." AT Louisville a man was held for perjury for swearing in a bail case that he owned a four-hun dred-dollar lot, when it was found that the lot was in a cemetery. A PERSONAL friend of forty years' standing vouches for the fact that, as a young man, Mat thew S. Quay was so bashful he broke down in his first speech to a jury, and could not be per suaded to try again, preferring to quit the law. SIR WILLIAM GEORGE VENABLES VERNON HARCOURT, M. P., Liberal leader in the House of Commons, has been fined ten shillings and costs for allowing his chimney to catch fire through not having been cleaned. THE report of the case of Swift v. Stevens (8 Conn. 439) concludes as follows: " Peters, J., having received, during the argument of the case, intelligence of the death of his son, Hugh Peters, Esq., of Cincinnati, left the court house — multa gemcns, casuque animum concurrus — and gave no opinion."

ONCE, while Mr. Webster was addressing the Senate, the Senate clock commenced striking, but instead of striking twice at two p. M., con tinued to strike without cessation more than forty times. All eyes were turned to the clock, and Mr. Webster remained silent until the clock had struck about twenty times, when he thus appealed to the chair : " Mr. President, the clock is out of order! I have the floor!"

THE unspeakable Turk has a curious method of dealing with drunkards. The punishment for the first, second and third offenses is the bastinado in varying doses. After that stage is reached, how ever, the offender becomes a privileged character,

as it were, and is entitled to be tenderly helped home by a policeman when he is found in an over-stimulated condition. The rush through the preparatory schools to the honor grade can be imagined. A NUMBER of men were recently discussing present conditions at their club. One of them advanced the proposition that the McKinley administration had not as yet brought about any marked advanced in the country's prosperity. "Oh, I don't know about that," quickly observed another. " We are already sending hay to England and porter to France." "Nothing was said," adds the occasional bene factor, " of the beneficent influence of our send ing an angel to Turkey."

OF Bismarck's capacity with the bottle in his student days many tall stories are told, but he was, in fact, a mighty drinker all his life until Dr. Schweninger forbade further indulgence because of increasing stoutness. He never had any fear of professors, and on several occasions he showed this clearly in the class-room and elsewhere. On one occasion, says a German paper, he was brought before a university judge to be ques tioned because he had the night before thrown a bottle into the street through the window of a beer hall. He entered the presence of the judge clad not in the conventional dress-suit obligatory on such occasions, but wearing his long smoking coat, a big pair of riding boots and white leather pantaloons. He was vigorously smoking a long pipe, and his ferocious-looking English bull dog accompanied him, to the great terror of the judge, who, retreating behind a chair, mildly asked Bismarck what he wanted. " Nothing at all," was the cool reply, "but you seem to want me," and he showed the summons. The dog was sent away, and the judge began to ask how the bottle got into the street. Bismarck said it must have flown there. " But what power caused this bottle's flight?" persisted the judge. "It partly consisted, sir," said Bismarck, " in the contraction of the muscles, partly in the impelling forward of the arms. To illustrate" — and the student picked up a heavy inkwell and aimed it at the judge, who saw the point and dismissed the case.