Irish Legal Repartees.
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IRISH LEGAL REPARTEES. II. THE date of one of the earliest mots of Jeremiah Keller, the noted Irish King's Counsel and wit of the late decades of the last century and the earliest decades of the present century, can be accurately fixed. A young barrister, who lodged in the house of a Mr. Moore, a grocer in Aungicr Street, Dublin, invited some friends, of whom Keller was one, to dinner. Immediately after din ner the servant announced that " Mrs. Moore was confined, and the baby was a boy." The host proposed the adjournment of the party to a neighboring tavern, where they could indulge their merriment without disturbing his landlady. " Quite right," said Keller, "that we should adjourn pro re uald." The baby whose birth caused the adjournment of this convivial party was Thomas Moore, the illustrious Irish poet. The date of his birth, and of Keller's joke, was the 28th of May, 1779. Keller, on being appointed executor to the will of a very eminent shoemaker, whose affairs were so complicated as to render a suit for the administration of his personal estate a necessity, was asked in what capac ity he proposed to sue. " Of course," was the ready reply, " I'll shoe as sole executor." In an argument at the bar, Mr. Amory Hawksworth, a very eminent member of the Munster Bar, who was opposed to Keller, much impressed the judge, who asked, "What reply do you make to that, Mr. Keller?" "This, my Lord," replied the wit : — "Amory Hawksworth, Amory Hawksworth, Little your talk; little your talk's worth."
When Mr. Edward Mayne, a pretentious, silent, decorous person, who had contrived by solemnity of manner to impose himself as a great lawyer on the public, was elevated to the bench, Keller, one of his contempo
raries, came into court and, in a tone which could reach the bench, said, as if thinking aloud : " Well, Mayne, there you are; there you have been raised by your gravity, while my levity sinks me here." A Mr. William MacMahon, who became, in 18 14, Master of the Rolls in Ireland and was created a baronet, was wont to con fuse metaphors somewhat strangely — so strangely, indeed, that it was believed that the confusion was not undesigned, and meant for the purposes of mirth. Here are examples : " Gentlemen of the jury, I smell a rat, but I'll nip it in the bud." Again : "My client acted boldly; he saw the storm brewing in the distance, but he was not dis mayed; he took the bull by the horns, and he indicted him for perjury." It is related that when addressing juries, MacMahon was accustomed to scatter showers of saliva somewhat unpleasantly on his neighbors in the bar seats. This coming very unexpectedly on the head of Sir John Franks, who sat next to Mr. Wil liam Henn, who was subsequently a Master in Chancery, Henn observed, " I thought we were near the Cove of Cork, but it is plain we are within reach of Spithead." The late Mr. Baron Green and Mr. Justice Crampton were on circuit together at Ennis. They were taking a stroll in the morning before going into court and, approaching a crowd of persons going into the town, were accosted by a man, who civilly took off his hat and said : " Maybe, gentlemen, you were in the court yesterday?" "Yes, my man," replied Baron Green. " And can your honor tell us what was done to the boys of O'Shaughnessy's? " (The reference was to men tried for faction fighting.) "I do not know," answered the Baron, who had been engaged in the record court, " but I think
