Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/573

This page needs to be proofread.
534
The Green Bag.

"What's the matter? what's up? what's to pay?" Practically, as experience teaches, when curiosity is thus excited, both memory and inquiry become active, and it is not long until the surprised in dividual knows clearly and definitely " what it's all about." — Atlanta, &c. R. R. v. Hudson, 62d Ga. 683. "Virtue, in all the offices of life, must take its orders from duty, not from happiness. Happi ness is not the mistress of the moral household, but the favorite daughter. Though the most cherished, she is not the most discreet member of the family. She is to be checked and restrained, and not have her own way. With too much in dulgence, or too much present gratification, she becomes a spoiled child, and degenerates into misery." — Daniel v. Frost, 62d Ga. 706. "Restitution before absolution is as sound in law as in theology."— Summerall v. Graham, 62d Ga. 731. "In that stage of the litigation, even when the merits are clearly against the losing party, he should have such mental satisfaction as he could derive from having finished his speech. He should not be slaughtered with his address warm in his bosom, alive and undelivered. His case being finally and forever lost, with his argument unheard, he would feel perhaps, and sometimes justly feel, that the outrage of deciding without hearing him was greater, far greater, than the calamity of the adverse decision. He might get justice, but with it a wound from the court more painful than any justice the court could admin ister; for it is not impossible that a suppressed speech may occasion more mental torture than a lost case." — Early v. Oliver, 63d Ga. 18. "The real plaintiff in an action of ejectment is the alleged lessor. John Doe is a mere fig ment of the law's imagination, with no more existence as a real suitor than Mercury has as a real god. Only during high poetic transport does the law regard him as a true, objective per sonality. Though born of the muse, he is dry and commonplace enough to be engaged in the extensive real estate business which he pretends to carry on, but in very truth he is a phantom — a legal will o' the wisp, an ingenious conceit of the law in its rapt poetic moods. He is not one of the plaintiffs which the sedate section of the Code we have recited speaks of." — Rutherford ?.. Hohbs, 63d Ga. 245.

"Mrs. Rose Taylor testified as a witness in be half of the state, and it is evident from the tenor and tone of her testimony that she considers her husband as a member of her family, and herself as the head of the establishment. The true legal relation of husband and wife is in her mind re versed. Metaphorically speaking, she puts the petticoat in a more advanced position than the pantaloons." — Morgan v. State, 63d Ga. 307. "According to the charges of the bill, the father had no capital, and the son no character. The man without character carried on business in the name, and upon the credit, of the man without capital." — Nussbaum v. Heilbron, 63d Ga. 315. "The suggestion is pregnant with innovation, but barren of law. . . . The denial of a request to charge the jury is complained of, which re quest, we must say, contained an excellent defin ition of a tippling-house. Most probably it was taken from good authority, but the dictionary definition of a term is frequently the mere air of the music which the accused has attempted to execute with variations. Frequently, too, the variations are so luxurious and ingenuous that the air is much disguised, and to hum it over from the bench is but little assistance to the jury in following the real performance. It is something easier for an offender to baffle the dictionary than the penal code." — Minor v. State, 63d Ga. 321. "It not unfrequently happens that a judgment is affirmed upon a theory of the case which did not occur to the court that rendered it, or which did occur, and was expressly repudiated. The human mind is so constituted that in many in stances it finds the truth when wholly unable to find the way that leads to it. "The pupil of impulse, it forc'd him along, His conduet still right, with his argument wrong; Still aiming at honor, yet fearing to roam, The coachman was tipsy, the chariot drove home."

— Lee?'. Porter, 63d Ga. 346. "There is little doubt that the defendant was the deity of this rude shrine, and that Mary was only the ministering priestess. But if she was the divinity and he her attending spirit to warn thirsty devotees where to drink, and at whose feet to lay their tribute, he is amenable to the state as the promoter of forbidden libations. ' Whether in these usurped rights he was serving I Mary or Mary him, may make a difference with