Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 15.pdf/644

This page needs to be proofread.
The Green Bag.

PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT $4.00 PER ANNUM.

SINGLE NUMBERS 50 CENTS.

Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, THOS. TILESTON BALDWIN, 1038 Exchange Building, Boston, Mass.

The Editor will be glad to receive contributions of articles of moderate length upon subjects of interest to the profession; also anything in the way of legal antiquities or curiosi ties, facetic?, anecdotes, etc.

tally, "that there's some good impulse if you can only find it. How came you to take such a fancy to the rat?" "Coz he bit the warden," replied the con vict, cheerfully.

BEGINNING with the January number THE GREEN BAG will offer to its readers .sev eral new features. The light literature of the law, which has been the special field of the magazine in the past, will not be neg lected; but in addition to the lighter articles there will be presented articles of a serious character, dealing with problems of juris prudence, with the higher topics' of the law, and with technical legal questions of interest. Attention will also be given to current cases, in a department which will bring together the most important cases in Federal and State courts during the previous month. A valua ble part of the Editorial Department will be a monthly summary of notable articles in American and foreign law magazines; and it is hoped that judges, law professors and practising lawyers, who may have no time to write exhaustive legal articles, will avail themselves of our columns for the discus sion, in brief letters, of interesting points which occur from time to time in their pro fessional work.

THE well-known legal expression, "no more chance than a cat without claws would have in hell," was originated in Illinois. The author was Emory Storrs. Mr. Storrs was addressing the jury in a celebrated case. Opposing counsel had said in closing his ad dress: "My learned friend who will follow me will undertake to make you believe that my client has no chance in this case. I warn you against his sophistry." Storrs arose and made one of the shortest speeches ever made to a jury. He said : "May it please the Court, and you, gentle men of the jury, the plaintiff in this case has no more chance than a cat without claws ivould have in hell." And then he sat down. The jury returned in less than ten minutes. The judge, who was a good deal of a wit and consequently liked a joke, asked, when the jury came in: Gentlemen, have you agreed upon a ver dict?" The foreman replied, "We have, your Honor." "Has the plaintiff any chance?" asked the Court. In a moment the court room was in a roar and the bailiff was splitting the desk with his gavel. The judge, however, made no cor rection in his inquiry, and the clerk's entry in this case stands today as he wrote it: "The jury finds in this case that the plain tiff had no more chance than a cat without claws would have in hell."

NOTES.

THE story ¡s told of a convict who had a rat for a pet in his cell. A visitor in the prison saw the convict playing with the rat and remarked: "Ah, you have a rat, I see." "Yes," replied the convict; "I feeds him every day. I think more of this rat than of any other living creature." "That proves," said the visitor, sentimen