“France, my mistress, France, my wedded wife,
Who shall proclaim divorce ’twixt me and thee?”
And, after a solemn pause, somebody in the gallery said, “Most any
Chicago Judge.”
_A Modern Judge on Portia’s Judgment_
The Home Secretary lately ventured to assert that Lord Bramwell
entertained so vast a reverence for all kinds of property that if he had
been called upon to decide the legal dispute in “The Merchant of
Venice,” he would infallibly have declared that Antonio’s pound of flesh
must be given to his creditor. Lord Bramwell, with the frankness which
usually characterizes him, has met Sir William Harcourt’s little joke by
an answer delivered from the judicial bench. In the course of an Appeal
Court case the learned judge took occasion to respond to the witty
illustration of the Home Secretary. Far from expressing the slightest
shame or penitence for the views which he holds as to the sacredness of
property of all descriptions, Lord Bramwell actually seems to glory in
them. The session of the Court of Appeal was probably the earliest
opportunity that was presented to him of answering Sir William
Harcourt’s banter; but at all events, he seized on the opportunity and
turned it to the best account. Portia’s statement of the case would,
Lord Bramwell tells us, have induced him to give the pound of flesh to
the usurer, except for one little flaw in her argument. The flesh had
not been “appropriated,” and could not, therefore, be regarded as
property to which Shylock had a good legal right until it had been cut
from Antonio’s quivering body. Supposing Lord Bramwell to have been
sitting in _banco_ with the Doge of Venice on the occasion of the famous
trial, and the pound of flesh had been lying on a table ready cut; in
that case the decision of the English judge would have been in favor of
the plaintiff’s claim to the possession of the horrible piece of
“property.” But then, as Lord Bramwell truly remarks, in order to get
the flesh, assault, and even murder, would have had to be committed, and
therefore the contract was null and void from the beginning. The moment
Shylock had advanced toward his victim, knife in hand, he would have
been technically guilty of an assault with intent, and would have been
obliged to appear at the police court of the period next morning to hear
what the sitting magistrate thought of the offence.
_A Legal Dilemma_
At an examination for admission to the bar of Ohio, the examiner
propounded this question: “A great many years ago there lived a
gentleman named Lazarus, who died possessed of chattels, real and
personal. After this event to whom did they go?” The student replied,
“To his administrators and his heirs.” “Well, then,” continued the
examiner, “in four days he came to life again; inform us, sir, whose
were they then?” Which interesting inquiry we submit to the lawyers. I
am not a lawyer, but I see no difficulty in the inquiry. Lazarus died
and was buried. As soon as he died, his property, if he left no will,
vested in his heirs. The law gives no man the right to die for four days
and then come to life again. Legally Lazarus couldn’t rise. I have no
doubt the Supreme Court would decide that the Lazarus who rose was not
the Lazarus who died; he was a new Lazarus. The new Lazarus would, of
course, feel within himself that he was the old Lazarus, and go around
boring his legal friends talking about his legal wrongs; but every
lawyer would leave him as quickly as possible, saying, in parting, “It’s
a hard case; but if your heirs can prove your death, and they came in
legally under the statute, there is no way to make them disgorge. All
you can do is this—you’re a young fellow about sixty; hire out as a
clerk, try to save something from your salary so as to go into business
again, build up a grand estate, and perhaps your heirs will recognize
your identity.”
_Virgil’s Æneid Dissected_
In an English college journal our old and highly polished friend P.
Virgilius Maro is quite thoroughly shaken up. After a little general
discussion of the poet, the writer proceeds to quote a large number of
passages in which Virgil is inconsistent and oftentimes contradictory.
Take, for instance, the following:
“Down comes blind Cyclops to the shore—
‘Postquam altos tetigit fluctus, et ad æquora venit,
Luminis effusi fluidum lavit inde cruorem.’
‘He washes with its water the gore that trickled from his scooped-out
eye.’ Now would anybody but a madman go and bathe a bleeding wound in
the sea—the sea, of all places? Why, he would have made his head smart
for a year; but Virgil wanted him down on the shore, and must make him
do something. Note, too, ‘fluidum cruorem.’ Now, in line 645 of the same
book (III), the fugitive tells Æneas that they put out the Cyclops’s eye
three months ago, and so, according to Virgil, the wound bleeds
incessantly for three months (three days of bleeding would, according to
modern doctors, have taken the life of even a stout Cyclops), and then
the giant comes down to the shore and bathes in salt water.... Again, in
the celebrated athletic sports in Book V., everybody is rewarded with a
prize. One man gets a prize because he comes in first; the second man
gets one because he would have been first if something hadn’t happened,
and the last man gets one because he fell down. The only parallel to
such a practice is one afforded by Artemus Ward, who, in command of a
volunteer force, makes all his men captains, to prevent jealousy. In V,
456, Virgil, after carefully telling us that Dares is wonderfully nimble
and Entillus wonderfully slow, lets the slow man chase the fast one,
_æquore toto_, hitting him all the while.”
_Relative Size_
Before the ocean leviathans of the Cunard and White Star steamship lines
were built, an inquirer asked whether the “Great Eastern” was the
largest vessel ever built. The editor replied, “An impression has got
abroad that she is, but such is not the case. The ‘Mayflower,’ in which
the Pilgrim fathers came to this country, was the largest ship that ever
ploughed the waters. The old furniture scattered over this country,
brought over by the ‘Mayflower,’ would fill the ‘Great Eastern’ a dozen
times or more.”
_The Cardinal’s Curse_
“The Jackdaw of Rheims” is better known than the majority of the
“Ingoldsby Legends,” with the dreadful curse which the cardinal called
down upon the thief who had stolen his ring:
The Cardinal rose with a dignified look.
He called for his candle, his bell, and his book!
In holy anger and pious grief,
He solemnly cursed that rascally thief!
He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed;
He cursed him in sleeping that very night,
He should dream of the devil and wake in a fright;
He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in drinking;
He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking;
He cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying;
He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying;
He cursed him in living, he cursed him dying!
Never was heard such a terrible curse!
But what gave rise to no little surprise,
Nobody seemed one penny the worse!
In twitting again at Holy Church, Mr. Barham makes Pope Gregory, in
setting a penance for Sir Ingoldsby Bray, break out in the following
extraordinary though highly entertaining dog Latin:
_O turpissime! Vir nequissime!
Sceleratissime!—quissime!—issime!_
Never, I trow, have the _Servi servorum_
Had before ’em such a breach of decorum,
Such a gross violation of _morum bonorum_,
And won’t have again _sæcula sæculoram_!
_The Berners Street Hoax_
In point of audacity and ingenuity in the line of practical joking,
Theodore Hook is unrivalled. The most famous of his hoaxes was played on
Mrs. Tottingham, an old lady living at No. 54 Berners Street, Oxford
Road, London. The date of its occurrence was November, 26, 1810, so long
since that the elders have forgotten it, and the later generations have
never heard of it. For the sake of the latter, it is worth while to
recall such a laughable incident.
In walking down Berners Street one day with a companion, their attention
was attracted to the neat and modest appearance of the house referred
to. “I’ll bet you a guinea,” said Theodore, “that in one week that nice
quiet dwelling shall be the most famous in all London.” The bet was
taken. In the course of the next four or five days, Hook wrote and
despatched more than a thousand letters, conveying orders to tradesmen
of every sort, all to be executed on one particular day, and as nearly
as possible at one fixed hour. From wagons of coal and potatoes to
books, prints, feathers, ices, jellies, tarts, anything and everything
available was ordered from rival dealers scattered from Wapping to
Lambeth, from Whitechapel to Paddington. In 1810 Oxford Road was not
approachable from Westminster, or Mayfair, or from the city, otherwise
than through a complicated series of lanes. Imagine the crash and jam
and tumult that followed! Hook had provided himself with a temporary
lodging on the opposite side of the street, and there, with a couple of
trusty allies, he watched the development of the drama. But, for
prudential reasons, some of the _dramatis personæ_ were seldom, if ever,
alluded to afterwards. Hook had no objection to open references to the
arrival of the Lord Mayor and his chaplain, invited to take the
death-bed confession of a peculating common councilman, but he would
rather have buried in oblivion that precisely the same sort of liberty
was taken with the Governor of the Bank of England, the Chairman of the
East India Company, the Lord Chief Justice, a cabinet minister, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief.
They all obeyed the summons—every pious and patriotic feeling had been
most movingly appealed to. We are not sure that they all reached Berners
Street, but the Duke of York’s military punctuality and crimson liveries
brought him to the point of attack before the poor widow’s astonishment
had risen to terror and despair. No assassination, no conspiracy, no
royal demise or ministerial revolution was a greater godsend to the
newspapers than this daring piece of mischief. In Hook’s own theatrical
world he was instantly suspected, but no sign escaped either him or his
confidants. Beyond that circle the affair was serious. Fierce were the
growlings of the doctors and surgeons, scores of whom had been cheated
of valuable hours. Attorneys, teachers of all kinds (male and female),
hair-dressers, tailors, preachers, and philanthropists had been
victimized, and were vociferous in their complaints. The tangible
material damage done was itself considerable. Beer casks and wine casks
were overturned, glass and china were smashed, harpsichords and
coach-panels were broken, and men and horses, under the resistless
pressure of a countless multitude, were thrown down and trampled upon.
It was a field-day for the pickpockets. A fervent hue and cry arose for
the detection of the trickster, but he disappeared and did not return to
his accustomed haunts until the storm had blown over.
_The Point of View_
The girl stood on the roller skates,
But then she could not go;
She was afraid to tempt the fates,
Because she wobbled so.
She called aloud, “Say, Chawley, say:
Do come; help me along!”
But Chawley went the other way,
Because his legs went wrong;
There came a crash—a thunder sound;
The girl, oh, where was she?
Ask of the giddy youth around,
Who viewed her hosiery.
_Vicissim_
A class of schoolgirls, highly educated on the newest principles, were
pouring forth to the Bishop of Manchester a list of Latin words, with
the English equivalents, and they came to the word which we elders
should call _vicissim_, “We-kiss-im,” said the girls; “we-kiss-im—by
turns.” “Oh, do you?” answered the bishop; “then I don’t wonder at your
adopting the new pronunciation.”
_Jack and Jill_
’Twas not on Alpine snow nor ice,
But honest English ground;
Excelsior! was their device;
But sad the fate they found.
They did not climb for love nor fame,
But followed Duty’s call;
They were together in their aim,
But parted in their fall.
_High Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle_
Heard ye that mirthful melody? Remote
It rose; and straight the strain, approaching near,
Caught of the careful cat the critic ear—
Proud dame, in tortoise decked or tabby coat,
The villain vermin’s vixen vanquisher.
Her frolic paw the festive fiddle smote,
Which, as high Hesper poured his glittering glance,
Inspired the not unawkward cow to dance
Above the beamy moon; all this beheld
The dog diminutive, while its strange romance
With laughter loud his simple bosom swelled:
The dish, high heaped with food of savory store,
Kissed the bright spoon by kindred love impelled,—
Such is the nursery tale of infant lore.
_Mary’s Little Lamb_
Mary possessed a diminutive sheep,
Whose external covering was as devoid of color as the congealed aureous
fluid which occasionally presents insurmountable barriers to railroad
travel on the Sierras;
And everywhere that Mary peregrinated
The juvenile Southdown was certain to get up and get right after her.
It tagged her to the alphabet dispensary one day,
Which was in contravention of established usage;
It caused the other youthful students to cachinnate and skyfungle
To perceive an adolescent mutton in an edifice devoted to the
dissemination of knowledge.
And so the preceptor ejected him from the interior.
And he continued to roam in the immediate vicinity,
And remained in the neighborhood until Mary
Once more became visible.
“What causes the juvenile sheep to hanker after Mary so?”
Queried the inquisitive children of their tutor.
“Why, Mary bestows much affection upon the little animal to which the
wind is tempered when shorn, you must be aware,”
The preceptor with alacrity responded.
_The Meeting_
They met; ’twas in the starry depths
Of August’s cloudless sky;
Fair Luna trod her silvery path
In matchless majesty:
The cricket chirped, the firefly
Pursued his fitful dance.
’Twas in the balmy slumb’rous night
That those two met by chance.
With throbbing heart and beating pulse
He spoke in accents low,
And in her glancing eye there came
A deeper, warmer glow:
Then up the apple tree she flew
And there vindictive spat,
For “he” was “Jack” my terrier,
And “she” our neighbor’s cat.