A sergeant was accused, once upon a time, by his brethren of the
court, of having degraded their order by taking from a client a
fee in copper, and on being solemnly arraigned for this offense
in their common hall, it appears from the unwritten reports
of the Court of Common Pleas, that he defended himself by the
following plea of confession and avoidance: “I fully admit that
I took a fee from the man in copper, and not one, but several,
and not only in copper, but fees in silver; but I pledge my
honor as a sergeant, that I never took a single fee from him in
silver until I had got all his gold, and that I never took a
fee from him in copper until I had got all his silver, and you
don’t call that a degradation of our order!” (Text.)--CROAKE
JAMES, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
(521)