48
The Green Bag
In Austria a Christian witness is sworn be fore a crucifix placed between two lighted candles. Holding up his right hand he says, "I swear by God, the Almighty and All Wise, that I will speak the pure and full truth in answer to anything I may be asked by the court." If the witness is of the Jewish race, he uses the same words, but places his hand on a Bible opened at the page on which
never enjoy any fruit or yield from them; cursed be my cattle, my beasts, my sheep,
so that after this day they may never thrive or benefit me; yea, cursed may I be and every thing I possess.’ ” And sometimes all that-—and all the rest of it-in the matter of a suit brought to collect for a pair of boots, perhaps.
appears the Third Commandment, and the crucifix is removed. In a Belgian court the witness says: "I will
speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God and all the saints." No Bible is required in the admin istering of this oath. The Italian witness generally takes the oath in a dramatic manner. Resting his hand on an open Bible he excl/aims: “I will swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." ‘
LAMB AND THE INNER TEMPLE
‘ ‘ IF the proposal made by Mr. E.V. Lucas for the erection of a statue to Charles Lamb in London, be adopted, certainly no more fitting place than the Inner Temple Gardens could be selected," says the London Law journal. “No author has closer associations with the Temple, not even Johnson or Gold smith, after whom some of its buildings have been named.”
More ceremony attends,;the administering APPLYING JUDICIAL ETHICS of an oath in a Spanish court. The witness kneels on his right knee and places his right hand on the sacred book. The Judge then asks, "Will you swear to God and by those holy gospels to speak the truth to all you may be asked?" The witness replies, "Yes, I swear," to which the Judge rejoins, "Then if thus you do, God will reward you, and if
not, will require of you."
In a few districts
this form is varied by the witness placing the middle of his thumb on the middle of his fore finger, kissing his thumb, and declaring, “By this cross I swear.” It is to be hoped that the Norwegian wit ness is properly impressed with his obligation to speak the truth, or considerable energy is wasted. He is required to raise his thumb,
forefinger and middle finger, these signify ing the Trinity. Before the oath is actually taken a long exhortation is delivered, running in part :-—— “Whatever person is so ungodly, corrupt or hostile to himself as to swear a false oath, or not to keep the oath sworn, sins in such a manner as if he were to say: ‘If I swear falsely, then may God the Father. God the Son and God the Holy Ghost punish me, so that God the Father who created me and all mankind in His image, and His fatherly good ness, grace and mercy, may not profit me,
but that I as a perverse and obstinate trans gressor and sinner may be punished eternally in hell. If I swear falsely, then may all I have and own in this world be cursed; cursed
be my land, field and meadow, so that I may
THIS joke is told on Elmer E. Rogers, who wrote the first code of ethics for the bench. The scene was in the Circuit Court of Judge Adelor J. Petit, Chicago. Mr. Rogers, as chairman of the Committee on Professional Ethics of the Illinois State BarAssociation,it appears, had written canons of ethics on “The Duties of the Bench to the Bar and the Public," to supplement the ethics of the lawyer. The entire code will not be acted upon by the Association until its annual meeting in June, 1910. Seeing what he believed to be a good op portunity in a motion in this particular law suit before Judge Petit to initiate one of his novel canons of ethics for judges, Attorney Rogers began: "A judge is more important than the President of the United States. Congress makes laws and the President exe cutes them. but the Supreme Court of the United States may come along and annul the work of both.
For various reasons, therefore,
the courts, more than any other class of society, are in position to establish ethical standards for the entire nation." Then he represented that the conduct of opposing counsel had involved a breach of lawyers’ ethics, and as section 57 of Bench Ethics provided that "The judge should endeavor to maintain ethical standards, to promote in general the interests of the pro fession and the welfare ‘of the public," that there would be also a breach of judicial ethics, unless the Court imposed a fine on
