_Straw-bail_ (Vol. vii., pp. 85. 342.).--The origin of the expression "a
man of straw" may be traced to those mannikins or effigies representing the
human figure, which are (or used to be) paraded in the streets during the
Carnival in most continental countries. These mannikins were {465}
generally stuffed with _straw_; and hence, in legal phraseology, "a man of
straw" denotes the semblance of a man--a person of neither substance nor
responsibility, who is put forward to screen a real delinquent, or bear the
brunt of a prosecution. Such, at least, is the origin commonly assigned by
the French to their "homme de paille," the prototype of our "man of straw."