THE LIGHTER SIDE "Faith, an' long afore I come here I heard he was quite sententious." Handsomely. — " Brigg's ward is the most beautiful girl and he has cheated her out of fifty thousand dollars, but he doesn't con sider it a crime." "What does he call it?"' "He calls it ' doing the handsome thing.'" Truly Feminine. — A pretty girl went to a famous New York lawyer last month and asked him to conduct a breach of promise case for her. "What evidence have you?" asked the noted jurist. "Evidence in plenty," replied the broken hearted one. Then she burst into tears and added: " In the first place he always called on me in a business suit and — and — and in the second he has married another girl!" Lapsed. — Peter Newell tells a story of a little Southern boy who sat reading while his colored mammy was doing the mending. The child looked up and asked: "Mammy what does ' lapse of justice ' mean?" "For de Lawd, honey, I su't'nly doan' know. All de justices what visits your pa am so fat dey aint got no laps." In Bankruptcy. — An Irish lawyer who is always full of original sayings hung around the referee in bankruptcy and asked who did most of the business in that court. The referee replied that L. seemed to have the most business. The lawyer said, " Well I always thought that L. had a lot of poor clients, but never knew before that he had all the dead beats in town." The Law's Delay. — The aforesaid lawyer was seen sitting quietly on the doorsteps of the court house one day, absorbed in thought, and a lawyer came along and asked what the trouble was now. The wit replied, " I am waiting for clients. The judge has sent all my clients to the pen for six months and I have nothing more to do till they get out." Judge Hubbard. — The late Judge Hubbard, for more than fifty years a prominent mem ber of the Iowa Bar, was noted for his many sarcastic sayings and retorts in court. He had on the stand one John Wear, an old banker, all afternoon on a hot June day, when
263
the judge left the room for a few minutes, much to the satisfaction of the witness who got out a red handkerchief with which he wiped his brow. Hubbard, who had not gotten out of the witness what he thought, said in a most sarcastic vein. " It makes you sweat, John, to tell the truth, don't it?" A doctor who was rather pompous asked to be excused so that he could look after his patients. Judge Hubbard replied to the full court room. " You should give your patients a chance to get well, and I'll keep you here for that purpose." He hated a man who was too technical, and used to relate of one S. that "he is so technical that he will fall over a crowbar to hunt for a needle, and not see the crowbar mind you." He was an enemy of a certain person who always gave him more or less trouble. One day the judge came into an office asking if he could tell him anything about the life tables. " No," replied the per son. " Well," said the judge, " I just want to know how long I'll have to endure that fool of a man who lives across the way, that's all," and away he went down street. He got left in a political campaign and one day having heard of a shoemaker who had voted against him, whom he had befriended, the judge replied, " Say Jack, you won't need to buy any more bristles for you can just put your hand back of your neck and pull one out, for you are nothing but hog anyway." Judge Rothrock. — The late Judge Rothrock had a fine sense of humor and often enlightened court and juries in his own inimitable way. He sat on the Bench when one G. W. Wilson came into court with a cart full of books. The judge asked what all this was for, and Wilson replied that it was to show up a receivership. " Well, well," said the judge, " don't you think this failure is entirely due to too much bookkeeping?" When he was on the Supreme Bench he examined a number of young men for admis sion to the Bar. Among the number there was a young man who knew the code very well but had no knowledge of legal principles. He said to him, " Young man you are in bad fix, for the legislature may in a night do away with all the law you know." At another time he was trying a suit in which there were about a half dozen lawyers who quarreled
