Personal Recollections of English Law Courts.
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carried his point and had the satisfaction of seeing the obnoxious tariff law repealed. I would be remiss in my duty in my de scription of these scenes, were I to leave out the part of the drama which Mr Clay acted. He came nobly to the rescue. He poured oil on the troubled waters. He healed the breach and brought about the celebrated Compromise. " Immortal honor to the name of Henry Clay!"
Southern sympathies and instincts, he nod ded assent when Mr. Calhoun appealed to the Constitution and to the testimony of his contemporaries, and when, as he thought, Mr. Calhoun had completely demolished Mr. Webster by turning the latter's argument against himself, he whispered to a senator, "Webster is dead; I saw him dying an hour ago." Mr. Lamar contends that Mr. Calhoun prevailed in this debate, — that he
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF ENGLISH LAW COURTS. I. By Baxter Borret.
THE CHANCERY COURTS. . PERHAPS the personal recollections of an old fogey, of the Chancery courts as they existed in the years 1860 to 1870 may amuse and interest the readers of The Green Bag. I went as an articled clerk into a large agency house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, in 1 860, and hardly a day passed without my strolling round the courts, studying the appearance of the Chancery judges and the leaders of the equity bar, and listening now and then to the silvery lisp and drawl of Sir R. Bethell, the brilliant and earnest eloquence of Sir Hugh Cairns, and the constant jokes of Knight Bruce. In those days the usual court of Appeal in Chancery was that presided over by Lords Justices Knight Bruce and Turner. You could al ways reckon on hearing a ponderous joke from Knight Bruce if you went in soon after the usual adjournment for luncheon, and it was strange to watch Sir G. Turner's face, doing his utmost to preserve the dignity of the court, and yet compelled to laugh in
spite of his dignity. I never saw any man take snuff so persistently as Sir G. Turner. He had lost his voice after arguing an ap peal in the House of Lords for some three weeks without a break, except for Sundays, and the effect of the sudden changes from the lower tones to the piping treble of a boy was ludicrous. A little, old mad woman used to hover about the court, supposed, but I think wrongly, to be the original of Dickens's Miss Flite. One day the old woman strayed into the court and began haranguing the Lords Justices; they were accustomed to her ways, and in mercy used to let her talk for a few minutes, rather than interrupt her. Turner sat busily reading the papers in an appeal case which had been opened, while Knight Bruce was equal ly busy writing letters, with the aid of a large magnifying-glass. After a time the old lady's fount of eloquence dried up, and she left the court, whereupon Mr. Bacon, even then an old man with a thin, wheezy voice (also a great snuff-taker), rose to re
