Root's Connecticut Reports are not consid ered high authority by the Massachusetts courts. In a case before Chief Justice Shaw the counsel on one side cited a case from these Reports, upon which the Chief Justice said, " This court con siders Root's Reports as radically defective." This is the only joke that Chief Justice Shaw was ever known to make. To avoid prosecution on the charge of usury the loaners of small sums in the West resort to various methods. The " double-room " system is used in many cases to secure two hundred and forty per cent, from those people of the working class who are hard pressed for money. These small money-loaners generally make their office at their home, and the woman is represented as the capitalist. The husband acts as the agent. He receives all applicants for loans, and informs the would-be borrower of a " five " that he can secure the amount for a month, but that as agent for the capitalist he will have to charge a com mission for his services. This agreed upon, he goes to the door leading to the next room, asks his wife if he may make the loan, and having obtained her consent, returns to make out the papers. These papers consist of a power of at torney which the borrower is asked to sign giv ing the agent the power to hold the wages of this man at the place where he is working after such a certain pay day in the sum of six dollars. That there may be no opportunity for catching him, the agent of the woman draws up a check for that amount which is given to the unsuspect ing borrower with the tacit understanding that he is to return one dollar at once for the services of the agent in securing the loan and making out the papers. This is frequently worked and many times the borrower seeks damages later for hav ing his wages tied up, but in the justice courts little sympathy is given the men who so reck lessly sign the papers of sharks, and they gen erally have to take their medicine. "Lord Field," says the Law Journal, " was wont to relieve the routine of the common-lawcourts by a touch of humor. A number of jury men, failing to answer to their names, he fined them all 10/. 'That should convince these gen tlemen, ' he said, ' that silence is very golden on occasions like this.'"
Many years ago a young man in Gloucester, Massachusetts, conceived the idea that he had talent for portrait painting and opened a little studio. Soon afterwards he made a trade with Captain Woodbury, of Beverly, to paint his like ness. If it was a success, he was to be paid ten dollars, if not, he was not to take it. After sev eral sittings the artist wrote him that the picture was finished; it was delivered to Woodbury for examination, but Mr. Woodbury declared it looked no more like him than it did like the painter himself, and refused to accept it. Where upon the painter brought a suit against Wood bury before a magistrate. Woodbury retained Rufus Choate. At the trial Choate had present the portrait, and concluded his argument by saying : "Look at this; it is not a likeness of any thing in the heavens above, in the earth be neath, or in the waters under the earth, therefore it is no sin to worship it." A characteristic story (says The Laiv Jour nal, quoting the Daily Telegraph) is told in the library of the Four Courts of an incident in the early professional life of Lord Ashbourne. As a youthful junior he is said to have found himself associated in a Chancery cause of considerable difficulty with Mr. Piers White, Q. C, an eminent equity leader. At a consultation the latter pointed out to his young, and presumably diffi dent, friend that there were four possible points to be made, three of them meritorious and the fourth of a less promising kind; and suggested that when he (the leader) had dealt with the first three, Mr. Gibson, in following him, should touch lightly on the fourth. " Not at all," said Mr. Gibson, " you shall discuss all the four points and I will then repeat your entire argu ment in a louder and more confident tone." And he did. The influence of some of the new laws passed by the last legislature in Iowa, is being noted by many throughout that State. The provision for compulsory education and the naming of a truant officer is being taken advantage of in some counties, while in others it is considered some what of a joke. In certain sections, truant offi cers have been named by the school directors and unruly children are being brought before
