254
The Green Bag
already been adopted in a large pro portion of the states almost as it stands.
One of the most gratifying features of this movement is, in
our
judgment,
night policeman by the Missouri Pacific to watch their coal yards. They had suffered with a long series of coal pilfering. One night a tall lanky colored man was seen by the alert sleuth to sneak along behind
the solidarity of sentiment which it
a gondola loaded with coal, and the night
evidences. The Connecticut State Bar Association may have shown that this Code can be improved upon in some minor particulars, but it remains true
marauder carried a suspicious looking gunny sack. Kyle lay low and waited. Soon the colored man 's head was seen to peer cautiously above the side of the gondola. Promptly Bill let fly a big chunk of coal that hit the colored man square in the mouth, knocking five teeth
that it meets more eilectually than any other yet proposed the need of exact and complete definitions of every pro fessional duty. The caution displayed
by the committee of. the Connecticut Bar in not venturing to diverge widely
from its substance afiords an illustration of the opinion shared in all quarters that it is a standard code for the guid
ance of the entire American Bar.
SOME KANSAS ANECDOTES UDGE BARRET of the City Court at Wichita, Kans., according to the Wichita. Eagle, is addicted to the habit of telling the
following story: There was a case of
petty larceny on
wherein a colored man was being tried.
out of his face, and mussing up his com
plexion considerably. The description was so accurate that before daylight a deputy con stable had arrested him. “Then to the dumbfounded astonishment of all court officials next morning, when the battered-up colored prisoner appeared in court, with his face all tied up in bandages, and his whole map a skinned proposition, there was Jim Conly with the most magnifi cent masterpiece of an alibi. Four other dusky sons of Ham testified that the accused was never near the Missouri Pacific yards at that time, but was shooting craps up in a resort near the stock yards. There sat the accused with his face in a sling, five teeth gone, and answering the description exactly, and yet the force of the alibi went, and he was turned loose. "After that, out of complimentary recog nition of the ability of the able rising young criminal lawyer, Jim Conly was thereafter dubbed with the descriptive and apropos nick name of ‘Alibi Jimmy.’" Mr. Harris has the reputation of being, of all the members of the Sedgwick county bar, one of the readiest in repartee. Some one asked him years ago what he thought of the judicial capability of a certain judge then on the bench. “Please don’t ask me. I never like to probe deeply into ab stract propositions of metaphysics," was the reply. Mr. Harris at another time, in the heat of an argument before a jury, made use of an expression which brought down the gavel of
Mr. Conly of Wichita represented one side and Mr. Harris the other. There were three negroes on the jury and three white men. The jury promptly brought in a verdict of acquittal, which was in favor of Mr. Harris. When the court asked the foreman, who was one of the negroes, just why that verdict had been reached he got this reply:— “Well, jedge, you see it was this a-way. We fust thing thought de prisoner guilty. But dah prepondahance of eloquence was with Mistah Harris and so we jest brung in dat ah werdick of not guilty, yo’ hahnah." Recently Judge Barret, Mr. Conly and Mr. Harris were joking and telling stories, and the court, and he was warned not to do it after Mr. Conly had quoted the foregoing yarn again. Within a minute he said the same from Judge Barret's large répertoire, the Judge thing again. "Sir," thundered the irate judge, “do you came back at him with the following, which we fear may almost be too good to be mean to show contempt for this court?" true:
"Bill Kyle. a huge negro and a political sharper of years ago, was given a job as
"No, sir," replied Kos Harris, “I certainly do not. In fact I'm doing the best I can to conceal my contempt for this court."
