THE GREEN BAG "In my opinion, this is a case which ad mits of only one remedy — patience." —• Bal timore Daily Record. "When I first came to Kansas and found that the state had no grand jury system, I thought surely I was beyond the limits of civilization," said Col. Bill Hackney, the other day. " I immediately became a reformer and started an agitation for a law creating grand juries. I was sent to the legislature two or three terms and at each session tried to get a grand jury law through, but failed. Then I went to the Senate for a couple of terms, and kept up my fight, but failed. Then as a mem ber of the ' third house ' for a couple of terms, I threw my influence in favor of the grand jury bill every time it showed up. Finally, after seventeen years of ceaseless toil, I was amply rewarded. A grand jury law was passed. I went home happy. I had helped do something to protect the rights of the people. In order to see how the thing worked, the people of my own county, where the agitation had been the fiercest, had a grand jury called, and I was the first man indicted. I was accused of betting on an election." Getting Even with a Lawyer. — A New Hampshire lawyer was defending a railroad in a suit brought to recover damages for phy sical injuries to the plaintiff. The latter was on the stand, and the lawyer was questioning him in a manner calculated to disconcert and "rattle." The witness stood it for a while, but finally broke out with : "Sir, I shall have to refuse to answer your questions unless you put them in a different manner. This is a positive injury to my nervous system, which at best is in a shat tered condition. I am troubled, owing to my injury, with sclerosis of the spinal cord, and at this moment I can see you double, when the Lord knows it is enough to upset a man to see you once." — Boston Herald. Claiming His Own. — A Kansas City lawyer, says the Times of that city, while in St. Louis the other day, dropped in on a friend who is a judge, and found him holding court. A pris oner, with a well-known criminal past, was being tried for the hold-up of a Dutch grocery man. In the robbery the Dutchman had
grappled with one of the two robbers and had wrested his pistol from him. The robbers escaped, but the storekeeper retained the re volver, and it was offered in evidence at the trial. The prisoner managed to " fake up" a pretty fair alibi, and, although the Dutch man positively identified him as the smaller of the two robbers, he was acquitted. After the jury had delivered its verdict the young man approached the Bench and said: "Judge, can I have my gun now?" "What's that? " said the judge sternly. The young man thereupon, realizing his mistake, ran out of the court room. The jurors, who had not dispersed, were mad, and the judge, who had never been much in sym pathy with the alibi, was madder still. "Can't we get him back here and convict him? " asked the foreman. "No," replied the judge in disgust, " he's been acquitted, but I hope he robs the home of every one of you." Not There. — Lawyer. — " You say you left home on the loth?" Witness. — " Yes, sir." Lawyer. — "And came back on the 25th?" Witness. — " Yes, sir." Lawyer (severely). — " What were;you do ing in the interim?" Witness. — " Never was in such a place." Instructions. — A young lawyer was re quested to prepare an instruction with respect to evidence offered under a plea of contributory negligence. The result was so ingeniously, de lightfully, shockingly original, that one of our subscribers wants to share it with the others. Instruction to the Jury No. 3 The court instructs the jury that one's ignorance and want of knowledge of that which he ought to know is no excuse for that which the law presumes he in common with men of ordinary intelligence does know. It is not actual knowledge that is necessary be fore plaintiff is guilty of contributory negli gence, but what he is presumed to know. The Judge's First Client. — Judge James J. Banks, the well-known Denver lawyer, is a. native of the south. It was in Birmingham.. Ala., that he hung out his first shingle. For
