The Green Bag
540
putes on which the law can throw no light by the appeal to each other's moral convic tions, or by the more primitive expedient of brute force. It is well that, for a time at least, reciprocal treaties of arbitration should partake in large measure of the character of private covenants, rather than of that of agreements in which the world state has an interest or to which it is a party. An agree ment between three or four leading powers does not create international law. There is no sanction for the universal validity of principles on which they may unite. If there were, the real international law, which is thus far restricted in scope, could not so steadily progress towards a goal of systematic com prehensiveness, and the advent of inter national peace would be long deferred. WHISKERED JURORS AN Illinois judge, whose name we will not give, made a recent address before the Illinois State Attorneys' Asso ciation, in which he told of the tricks of lawyers to win cases. Speaking of the prejudices of jurors and of judges, he said :— "Whiskers play a great part in law-suits. At present the prejudice in Chicago is against jurors with whiskers. It formerly was the other way. I know a judge who thought he was without prejudice and who thought only men with long whiskers made good jurors. The prejudice now is the other way and attorneys here generally reject men with long whiskers." It is fortunate that this prejudice is not widely prevalent, for if it were there could hardly fail to be a sudden change in men's fashions which would banish the smooth-shaven and moustached from American polite society. A VIRGINIA JUDGE IN VAUDEVILLE A REMARKABLY good reproduction of an old Virginia trial court seems to have been given lately in a London vaudeville house. The sketch originated in the enthu siasm of a Virginia saloon-keeper for the stage.
He was once taken on as a "supe," to take the part of a Virginia judge, and he carefully copied the manner of Justice J. D. G. Brown of Newport News, whom he knew well. The imitation made such a hit that the manager proceeded to build up the part of the judge into the central character of a more ambitious production. The play took well, and Kelly, the former saloon-keeper, has been getting $600 a week for his performances in London. Virginians abroad have been impressed by the realism of the piece, the colored population appearing on the stage in full force before the bar of justice. STRANGE CASE OF DUAL PERSONALITY THE strange case of Judge Joseph R. Clarkson, formerly of Omaha, adds one to the numerous instances of lost or dual personality related by the psychical research societies. On July 14 he tried a case in the court at Kenosha, Wis., in the morning and spent the afternoon at his office as usual. In the even ing, his family being away on an automobile trip in Minnesota, he went down town and had a long conference with this law partner, District Attorney R. V. Baker. Leaving the office about nine o'clock, he said he was going to a meeting of the Knights of Pythias, and from that time he was as completely lost to the view of his family and friends as though the earth had opened and swallowed him up. His health apparently was good, and there was nothing in his manner or conversation oh the last night when he was talking with Mr. Baker to show that his mind was in any way affected. On August 6, he was found by his friend, John Burns, who traced him first to a farm house where he had applied for work. Curi ously enough this farm was in the neighborhood where he had worked as a farm laborer during the period of his former aberration. Through information given by various farmers living in the vicinity, who remembered the missing man on account of his apparent culture, so incongruous with his seedy appearance, Judge Clarkson's friend was enabled to trace him to the button factory of the Iroquois Pearl Button Company at Sabula, la. He was known there as John Paul. Finding Clarkson working at a machine, cutting buttons
