Nunc Pro Tunc By HENRY A. MELVIN Assocum: JUSTICE or THE SUPREME COURT on CALIFORNIA. [Note-The learned reader may know all there is to know about the meaning of the phrase mmc pro tune, but we venture to ask his attention to the views of an eminent jurist on this expression, the more readily because this authority treats the subject in a new light, and like certain sculptors in old fairy tales, moulds his handiwork with such extraordinary success that it actually lives and speaks under his magic touch. The disquisition was delivered at the quarterly dinner of the San Francisco Bar Association last December, in the presence of a gathering so versed in moribund legal lore that . they could not fail to be dazzled by the retroactive splendor of Mr. Justice Melvin’s vivid translation of the words of a dead language into the heart-throbs of the living. In fact, there is only one phrase which can fitly describe the distinctive note of modernity which reverberates throughout this treatment of a musty subject, and that is the expressive term for which no synonym exists in the English language, nunc pro tuna. —Ed.]
A Y it please the Court, Gentlemen of the Jury: —
I have experienced the first thrill of joy this evening in learning that I have
been even indirectly the means of get ting my dear friend Judge Huntl into a law library.
Judging by my early
experiences at the bar of Department Five, and my later more painful duties of stem appellate inspection of some of the proceedings in that Court, I should say that the visit possessed all
ment Five, it may be said that when they come as grist from that mill they are satisfied with any fate. At the outset I am embarrassed about the pronunciation of my subject. Mr. Justice Henshaw, who was more or less remotely acquainted with the professors at the University of California before the days of the Continental pronuncia
tion, says that the expression should be “nunc pro tune," with the "u" hard as in “horehound" and “hospital," not soft as
the charm of novelty. The Judge once confided to me the
in “McEnerney."3
fact that he hated puns and therefore never resorted to a library to hunt
associated with the Indiana poets, main
authorities. Be not deceived by the ease with
which he cites Mrs. Partington and Bumble. These references are all to be found in those two useful text-books, which he owns, “Whitewash on Char
acter" and "Shortridge on Silence."a With respect to the opinions of liti gants coming on appeal from Depart ‘Judge Hunt. who presided at the banquet. is the senior Superior Court judge of the state, hav ing been continuously in oflice since Jan. 1, 1880. -—Ed. ‘Mr. Shortridge is reputed the most eloquent orator in California. —-Ed.
Mr. Justice Shaw, who in his youth tains that the vowel should have a cooing sound as in “Murasky"‘ and “Mogan."5 Mr. Justice Sloss, a Harvard man,
thinks the "u" should be even more unctuous, as in "Hooray" and "Hula hula."
Mr. Justice Lorigan is sure it should be spoken as the “u" in “Cruiskeen
Lawn" and "Erin go Bragh.” ‘Mr. McEnerney is one of the most eminent mem bers of the California bar. and the author of the McEnerncy Act, recently sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States. —Ed. ‘Judge Murasky is judge of the juvenile court in San Francisco. —-Ed. ‘Judge Megan is one of the judges of the Superior Court of the city and county of San Francisc0.—Ed.
