The writer remembers hearing of a gentleman who, not wishing to pay the
legal and recognised fee for a consultation with his lawyer, devised
an expedient whereby he expected to gain the information he required
without the usual cost. He accordingly invited the man ‘learned in the
law’ to dine at his house on a particular evening, as a friend and
an old acquaintance. The lawyer gladly accepted the invitation, and
attended at the house of his friend and client prompt to the minute.
The conversation for some time was very general and agreeable, and
by-and-by the shrewd client, by hinting and suggesting, at last drew
the lawyer out into a learned and explicit dissertation upon the
subject the host wished to be informed upon. The client was pleased,
satisfied, and smiling, chuckled in his sleeve, thinking how nicely he
had wormed out the advice desired and pumped his lawyer, free of cost!
The feast over, the lawyer departed, equally pleased, and both being
satisfied, all went as merry as a marriage bell. But a few days
afterwards, the client received a letter from his lawyer informing
him that the charge for professional consultation and advice was
thirteen shillings and fourpence, and would he ‘kindly attend to the
payment of same at his earliest convenience, and oblige.’ The client
was wild—caught in his own trap. But being determined to outwit the
lawyer and gain his own ends, he forwarded to the latter a bill for
‘dinner, wines, and accessories supplied’ on the 16th inst., amounting
to thirteen shillings and fourpence, saying that if he would settle the
inclosed bill, he should only be too pleased and happy to settle the
lawyer’s little bill. The lawyer retorted by threatening to commence
an action against mine host for selling wines without a license, unless
his, the lawyer’s, bill was immediately paid. Do I need to say that the
lawyer was victorious?
When I was a boy, I heard of a lawyer who was called up in the middle
of a cold winter’s night to draw out the will of an old farmer who
lived some three miles away, and who was dying. The messenger had
brought a cart to convey the lawyer to the farm; and the latter in
due time arrived at his destination. When he entered the house, he
was immediately ushered into the sickroom, and he then requested to
be supplied with pen, ink, and paper. There were none in the house!
The lawyer had not brought any himself, and what was he to do? Any
lead-pencil? he inquired. No; they had none. The farmer was sinking
fast, though quite conscious. At last, the legal gentleman saw chalked
up on the back of the bedroom door column upon column of figures in
chalk. These were milk ‘scores’ or ‘shots.’ He immediately asked for a
piece of chalk, and then, kneeling on the floor, he wrote out concisely
upon the smooth hearthstone the last will and testament of the dying
man! The farmer subsequently died. The hearthstone will was sent to
the principal registry in London with special affidavits, and was duly
proved, the will being deposited in the archives of the registry. I may
mention that the law does not state upon what substance or with what
instrument a will must be written.
It is stated that a lawyer was some time ago cross-examining a witness
in a local court, when he asked: ‘Now, then, Patrick, listen to me.
Did the defendant in this case strike the plaintiff with malice?’—‘No,
sor, sure,’ replied Pat gravely; ‘he struck him wid the poker, bedad.’
Again he inquired of the same witness: ‘Did the plaintiff stand on the
defensive during the affray?’—‘Divil a diffinsive, yer honour; he stood
on the table.’
A celebrity noted for being ‘a bit of a poet’ was brought up before
a bench of local magistrates for an assault, when the following
conversation took place:
_Magistrate._ Is your name John Fray?
_Prisoner._ It is, your honour; so the people say.
_Mag._ Was it you who struck this man and caused the alarm?
_Pris._ Sure it was, your honour; but I thought there was no harm.
_Mag._ Now, stop that! Did you come here to make rhymes?
_Pris._ No, your honour; but it will happen sometimes.
The magistrate, laughing at the fellow’s ready wit, said: ‘Go away, you
rascal, get out of my sight!’
_Pris._ (_smiling_). Thank ye, your honour; an’ a very good-night.
There was once a plain out-spoken judge, who, addressing the jury,
said: ‘Gentlemen of the jury, in this case the counsel on both sides
are unintelligible; the witnesses on both sides are incredible; and the
plaintiff and defendant are both such bad characters, that to me it is
indifferent which way you give your verdict.’
It was once reported to the notorious Judge Jeffries that the Prince of
Orange was on the point of entering into the country, and that he was
already preparing a manifesto as to his inducements and objects in so
doing. ‘Pray, my Lord Chief Justice,’ said a gentleman present, ‘what
do you think will be the heads of this manifesto?’—‘Mine will be one,’
he grimly replied.
An undoubted alibi was some time ago successfully proved in an American
court as follows:
‘And you say that you are innocent of the charge of stealing this
rooster from Mr Jones?’ queried the judge.
‘Yes, sir, I am innocent—as innocent as a child.’
‘You are confident you did _not_ steal the rooster from Mr Jones?’
‘Yes, sir; and I can prove it.’
‘How can you prove it?’
‘I can prove that I didn’t steal Mr Jones’ rooster, judge, because I
stole two hens from Mr Graston same night, and Jones lives five miles
from Graston’s.’
‘The proof is conclusive,’ said the judge; ‘discharge the prisoner.’
It is said that the other day a client received the following bill from
his lawyer: ‘Attending and asking you how you did, 6s. 8d. Attending
you on the pier, when you desired me to look through a piece of smoked
glass, 6s. 8d. Looking through the same, 6s. 8d. Rubbing my eye,
which watered, 13s. 4d. Attending at luncheon, when you praised the
sandwiches and asked me to partake thereof, 6s. 8d. Consulting and
asking my opinion thereon, when I said they were very good, 6s. 8d.’
Most probably the client treated this as a joke; or perhaps it drove
him to extremities.
‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ said a counsel in a suit about a herd of hogs,
‘there were just thirty-six hogs in that drove; please to remember that
fact—thirty-six hogs; just exactly three times as many as there are in
that jury box, gentlemen.’ We are informed that that counsel did not
win his case. The jury were not so pig-headed.
Judge Kent, the well-known jurist, presided in a case in which a man
was indicted for burglary, and the evidence at the trial showed that
the burglary consisted in cutting a hole through a tent in which
several persons were sleeping, and then projecting his head and arm
through the hole and abstracting various articles of value. It was
claimed by his counsel that inasmuch as he never entered into the tent
with his whole body, he had not committed the offence charged, and
must therefore be set at liberty. In reply to this plea, the judge
told the jury that if they were not satisfied that the whole man was
involved in the crime, they might bring in a verdict of guilty against
so much of him as was involved. The jury, after a brief consultation,
found the right arm, the right shoulder, and the head of the prisoner
guilty of the offence of burglary. The judge accordingly sentenced the
right arm, the right shoulder, and the head to imprisonment with hard
labour in the State prison for two years, remarking, that as to the
rest of the man’s body, he might do with it what he pleased.
Lord Justice-clerk Braxfield was a man of few words and of strong
business habits, and consequently when he courted his second wife,
he said to her: ‘Lizzie, I’m looking out for a wife, and I thought
you just the person to suit me. Let me have your answer on or off
to-morrow, and nae mair aboot it.’ The lady, next day, replied in
the affirmative. Shortly after the marriage, Lord Braxfield’s butler
came to him to give up his situation because he could not bear her
ladyship’s continual scolding. ‘Man,’ Braxfield exclaimed, ‘ye’ve
little to complain of; ye may be thankfu’ ye’re no’ married to her.’
During the time that Brougham was rising in his profession, he had a
friend, a brother-counsel, who had contracted the habit of commencing
the examination of a witness in these words: ‘Now, sir, I am about
to put a question to you, and I don’t care which way you answer it.’
Brougham, with others, had begun to grow tired of this eternal formula,
and consequently one morning he met his brother-lawyer near the temple
and addressed him thus: ‘Now, Jones, I am about to put a question to
you, and I don’t care which way you answer it.—How do you do?’
The celebrated lawyer Butt was one night going home very late, when he
was accosted by a desperate-looking villain in one of the suburbs of
Dublin, and asked what he was going ‘to stand.’ ‘Well,’ replied Butt
meekly, ‘I’m very sorry that I can’t give you much, my friend, but what
I have we will share. Here,’ he continued, drawing a revolver from his
pocket, ‘is a weapon which has six chambers; I will give you three,
and’—— But the lawyer immediately found himself alone.
‘Mr Robinson,’ said counsel, ‘you say you once officiated in a pulpit.
Do you mean that you preached?’—‘No, sir; I held the candle for the man
who did.’ ‘Ah, the court understood you differently; they supposed that
the discourse came from you.’—‘No, sir; I only throwed a light on it.’
‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ said an Irish barrister, ‘it will be for you
to say whether this defendant shall be allowed to come into court with
unblushing footsteps, with the cloak of hypocrisy in his mouth, and
draw three bullocks out of my client’s pocket with impunity.’
We have heard of several cases of female ingenuity in aiding the
escape of prisoners. Here is one. The criminals were handcuffed, and
with their escort were awaiting the train which would convey them
to the county jail. Suddenly a woman rushed through the crowd of
spectators, and with a shower of tears, cried out: ‘Kiss me; good-bye,
Ned.’ The escort good-naturedly allowed the process of osculation
to be performed, and the sheriff smiled feelingly. The woman passed
a key from her own to the prisoner’s mouth, with which he undid the
‘bracelets,’ and escaped whilst the train was in motion.
There is a girl who seems to have peculiar notions of breach of promise
cases, for she threatens to sue her own father for breach of promise!
She explains that the old gentleman first gave his consent to her
marriage with her lover, and then withdrew it, and that in consequence
her beau got tired of waiting, and has gone off with another girl.
‘Prisoner at the bar,’ said the judge to a man on his trial for murder,
‘is there anything you wish to say before sentence is passed upon
you?’—‘Judge,’ replied the prisoner, ‘there has been altogether too
much said already. I knew all along somebody would get hurt, if these
people didn’t keep their mouths shut. It might as well be me, perhaps,
as anybody else. Drive on, judge, and give me as little sentiment as
you can get along on. I can stand hanging, but I hate gush.’