The Editor's Bag much disposed, upon occasion, to be flowery and figurative and to work up to a striking climax, in his way. "The trial had progressed through six days to the argument and the Junior was opening for the defense. He had turned his batteries with force and bitter ness against the younger brother for his treason to his blood and his effort to save his own neck by sending Ben to the halter. In the course of his de nunciation and abuse of Bill he said, in perfervid oratorical style, designed to put the witness in bad with the jury, 'Yes, he is a dirty scoundrel, who, like Joshua, sold his birthright for a mess of sausage.' "The old judge, sitting just behind his Junior, plucked his coat tail vigor ously, and, in a low but emphatic growl, said, 'Sit down, you d d fool; if you don't quit monkeying with the Scrip tures, you'll hang him sure." "Ben was sent to the Pen. for life; Bill was acquitted. Half way back to these trials the writer prepared the bar memorials of these two friends, the judge and the junior, near the same time." SERVING EARLY WRITS IT was not the easiest thing in the world to bring malefactors to jus tice in the early administration of the law in Virginia, as the following returns made to executions will illustrate. The extract is from the "History of Augusta County." "In the case of Johnson v. Brown (1751), "Not executed by reason there is no road to the place where he (Brown) lives." Again: "Not executed by reason of excess of weather." "Nov., 1752. — Not executed by rea son of an ax." The axe was evidently
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in the hands of the defendant, uplifted, no doubt, to cleave the officer's skull. "Not executed because the defend ant's horse was faster than mine." "Not executed, by reason of a gun." "Emlen v. Miller. — Kept off from Miller with a club, etc.; Miller not found by Humphrey Marshall." "Not executed because the defendant got into deep water — out of my reach." "Nov. 1754. — Executed on the within, John Warwick, and he is not the man." "August, 1755. — Forty-nine execu tions returned not executed, by reason of the disturbance of the Indians." MOOT POINT OF LAW THE following is a good example of those quibbles in legal practice that have a fascination for certain minds. Some years ago an Englishman, while traveling on the Continent, met the lead ing lawyer for the government of one of the principalities, who told him of a curious legal question. It had refer ence to a railway station at the boundary between two principalities. Some one standing outside the window of the ticket-office had put his hand through and robbed the till inside. The boundary line lay between where the thief stood and the till, so that he was actually in one territory while the crime was committed in the other. Here was a nice nut for the gentlemen learned in the law to crack. Which one of the principalities should undertake the prose cution of the culprit? At it they went in good earnest and the arguments on both sides were long and vehement, until the whole case was embalmed in many volumes. At last one side yielded so far as to say : — "We will permit you, as an act of courtesy, to prosecute, while at the
