Correspondence was more vigorous. Seeing that the president and the assessors were all asleep, he stopped and, dealing a tremendous blow on the desk in front of him that woke everybody up with a start, he cried,
"Yesterday at this same hour I was say ing—" and the whole bench rubbed their eyes and asked each other if they really had slept through twenty-four hours.
The same counsel was pleading at Versailles on a cold day and remarked that the judges were all turning more and more around toward a stove that gave out a welcome heat. “The tribunal behind which I have the honor of speak ing" brought them all “right about face" at once. On another occasion the judge asked him to cut his speech short, as the court
had made up its mind. Assuming the air of a childlike native, M. Cléry re torted: "Me right, you good judges, him innocent,” and sat down.
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Though not intended humorously, the celebrated criminal advocate, Maitre Henri Robert, made a hit the other day when defending the matricide, vWaché de
Roo. He produced an act of renuncia tion signed by the prisoner of all benefit from the will of the mother he had mur dered, and added to the jury: “So if you acquit him he will go forth miser able and poor, perhaps to Madagascar, to repent of an act which he may have committed in a moment of thoughtless
ness!” And the verdict of the jury was typi cal. They found that he had com mitted murder, but that he had not
killed his mother, although the unfor tunate lady was the only person who had
been killed. This was in order to save the prisoner from ten years’ penal servi tude, which is the minimum penalty for parricide, whereas manslaughter with
extenuating circumstances can be let off with mere confinement.
Correspondence A NEW YORK CASE SHOWING USES OF TORRENS SYSTEM To the Editor of the Green Bag: — Sir: It seems strange that no mention has been made of an extremely im portant decision rendered by the Court of Appeals in February last, in the case of Bradley v. Crane (201 N. Y. 14) which affects the titles of thousands of real estate properties in the City of New York. The question involved in this litigation was whether the City acquired a fee in the soil, or merely
an easement over the land taken for
the Bloomingdale road which was sub sequently abandoned. The history of this old road is very interesting as set forth in the opinion of the Court of Appeals, from which a few passages may be quoted as follows: — "June 19, 1703, a Colonial act entitled ‘An act for the laying out, regulating, clearing and preserving publick highways thro'out this colony’ (1 Colonial Laws, p. 532, c.131) appointed three persons commissioners of highways for each of the various counties of the colony, other than the County of New York, and three
for the City and County of New York, and pro vided inter alia ‘that there be laid out, preserved
