THE COURT OF SESSION GARLAND

PART FIRST

The Bill charged on was payable at sight And decree was craved by Alexander Wight;[1] But, because it bore a penalty in case of failzie It therefore was null contended Willie Baillie.[2]

The Ordinary not chusing to judge it at random Did with the minutes make avizandum. And as the pleadings were vague and windy His Lordship ordered memorials hinc inde.

We setting a stout heart to a stey brae Took into the cause Mr. David Rae:[3] Lord Auchenleck,[4] however, repelled our defence, And over and above decerned for expence.

However of our cause not being asham'd, Unto the whole Lords we straightway reclaim'd; And our petition was appointed to be seen, Because it was drawn by Robbie Macqueen.[5]

The answer of Lockhart[6] himself it was wrote, And in it no argument or fact was forgot; He is the lawyer that from no cause will flinch, And on this occasion divided the Bench.

Alemoor,[7] the judgment as illegal blames, 'Tis equity, you bitch, replies my Lord Kames;[8] This cause, cries Hailes,[9] to judge I can't pretend, For Justice, I see, wants an e at the end.

Lord Coalston[10] expressed his doubts and his fears, And Strichen[11] then in his weel weels and O dears; This cause much resembles that of M'Harg, And should go the same way, says Lordy Barjarg.[12]

Let me tell you, my Lords, this cause is no joke; Says with a horse laugh my Lord Elliock[13] To have read all the papers I pretend not to brag, Says my Lord Gardenstone[14] with a snuff and a wag.

Up rose the President,[15] and an angry man was he, To alter this judgment I never can agree; The east wing said yes, and the west wing cried not, And it carried ahere by my Lord's casting vote.

This cause being somewhat knotty and perplext, Their Lordships not knowing what they'd determine next; And as the session was to rise so soon, They superseded extract till the 12th of June.

PART SECOND

Having lost it, so now we prepare for the summer, And on the 12th of June presented a reclaimer; But dreading a refuse, we gave Dundas[16] a fee, And though it run nigh it was carried to see.

In order to bring aid from usage beyond, The answers were drawn by quondam Mess John;[17] He united with such art our law the civil, That the counsel, on both sides, would have seen him to the devil.

The cause being called, my Lord Justice-Clerk,[18] With all due respect, began a loud bark; He appeal'd to his conscience, his heart, and from thence, Concluded to alter, but give no expence.

Lord Stonefield,[19] unwilling his judgment to podder, Or to be precipitate agreed with his brother; But Monboddo[20] was clear the bill to enforce, Because, he observed, 'twas the price of a horse.

Says Pitfour[21] with a wink and his hat all agee, I remember a case in the year twenty-three, The magistrates of Banff contra Robert Carr, I remember well, I was then at the Bar.

Likewise, my Lords, in the case of Peter Caw, Superflua non nocent was found to be law: Lord Kennet[22] also quoted the case of one Lithgow Where a penalty in a bill was held pro non scripto.

Lord President brought his chair to the plum, Laid hold of the bench and brought forward his bum; In these answers, my Lords, some freedoms have been used, Which I could point out, provided I chus'd.

I was for this interlocutor, my Lords, I admit, But am open to conviction as long's I here do sit; To oppose your precedents I quote you some clauses, But Tait[23] a priori hurried up the causes.

He prov'd it as clear as the sun in the sky That the maxims of law could not here apply, That the writing in question was neither bill nor band But something unknown in the law of the land.

The question adhere or alter being put, It carried to alter by a casting vote: Baillie then mov'd.—In the bill there's a raze, But by that time their Lordships had called a new case.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Wight: a well-known advocate of the period. [2] Baillie: Lord Palkemmet. [3] Afterwards Lord Eskgrove. [4] The father of James Boswell. [5] Afterwards Lord Braxfield. [6] Lord Covington. [7] Andrew Pringle. [8] Henry Home, who was notorious for the use of the epithet in the text. [9] Sir David Dalrymple, author of the Annals of Scotland. [10] George Brown of Coalston. [11] Alexander Fraser of Strichen. [12] James Erskine, who changed his title to Lord Alva. [13] James Veitch. [14] Francis Garden, who founded the town of Laurencekirk in Kincardineshire. [15] Robert Dundas, first Lord President of that name. [16] Henry, first Viscount Melville, the friend of Pitt. [17] A nickname for John Erskine of Carnoch. [18] Sir Thomas Miller of Glenlee. [19] John Campbell, raised to the Bench in 1796. [20] Jas. Burnet of Monboddo, who had a theory that human beings were born with tails. [21] James Ferguson of Pitfour. Owing to weak eyesight he wore his hat on the Bench. [22] Robert Bruce of Kennet. [23] Clerk of Session.

It was the first Lord Meadowbank, who wearying of the dry statement of a case made by Mr. Thomas W. Blair, broke in with the remark: "Declaim, sir! why don't you declaim? Speak to me as if I were a popular assembly."

In the reign of Queen Anne there was an old Scottish judge—Lord Dun—who was particularly distinguished for his piety. Thomas Coutts, the founder of the bank now so well known, used to relate of him that when a difficult case came before him, as Lord Ordinary, he used to say, "Eh, Lord, what am I to do? Eh, sirs, I wish you would make it up!" Of another judge of much the same period, also noted for his strict observance of religious ordinances; but who, at the same time, did not allow these to interfere with his social habits, it is related that every Saturday evening he had with him his niece, who afterwards married a more famous Scottish judge, Andrew Fletcher, Lord Milton, Charles Ross who made himself prominent in the "45" Rebellion, and David Reid, his clerk. The judge had what was, and in some parts of Scotland still is, known as "the exercise," which consisted of the reading of a chapter from the Bible, and his form of announcing the evening devotions was: "Betsy (his niece), ye hae a sweet voice, lift ye up a psalm; Charles, ye hae a gey strong voice, read the chapter; and David, fire ye the plate." Firing the plate consisted of a dish of brandy prepared for the company, of which David took charge, and while the first part of the proceedings were in progress David lighted the brandy, which when he thought it burnt to his master's taste he blew out, and this was the signal for the others to stop, while the whole company partook of the burnt brandy. This same judge—Lord Forglen—was walking one day with Lord Newhall, in the latter's grounds. Lord Newhall was a grave and austere man, while, as may be gathered, Lord Forglen was a medley of curious elements. As they passed a picturesque bend of a river Lord Forglen exclaimed: "Now, my lord, this is a fine walk. If ye want to pray to God, can there be a better place? If ye want to kiss a bonny lass, can there be a better place?"



Sir David Rae (Lord Eskgrove), Lord Justice-Clerk of Scotland, has been described as a ludicrous person about whom people seemed to have nothing else to do but tell stories. Sir Walter Scott imitated perfectly his slow manner of speech and peculiar pronunciation, which always put an accent on the last syllable of a word, and the letter "g" when at the end of a word got its full value. When a knot of young advocates was seen standing round the fireplace of the Parliament Hall listening to a low muttering voice, and the party suddenly broke up in roars of laughter, it was pretty certain to be a select company to whom Sir Walter had been retailing one of the latest stories of Lord Eskgrove.

He was a man of much self-importance, which comes out in his remarks to a young lady of great beauty who was called as a witness in the trial of Glengarry for murder. "Young woman, you will now consider yourself as in the presence of Almighty God, and of this Court; lift up your veil, throw off all modesty, and look me in the face."

Sir John Henderson of Fordell, a zealous Whig, had long nauseated the Scottish Civil Courts by his burgh politics. Their lordships of the Bench had once to fix the amount of some discretionary penalty that he had incurred. Lord Eskgrove began to give his opinion in a very low voice, but loud enough to be heard by those next him, to the effect that the fine ought to be L50, when Sir John, with his usual imprudence, interrupted him and begged him to raise his voice, adding that if judges did not speak so as to be heard they might as well not speak at all. Lord Eskgrove, who could never endure any imputation of bodily infirmity, asked his neighbour, "What does the fellow say?"—"He says, that if you don't speak out, you may as well hold your tongue."—"Oh, is that what he says? My lords, what I was saying was very simpell; I was only sayingg, that in my humbell opinyon this fine could not be less than L250 sterlingg"—this sum being roared out as loudly as his old angry voice could launch it.

A common saying of his to juries was: "And now, gentle-men, having shown you that the panell's argument is impossibill, I shall now proceed to show you that it is extremely improbabill."

In condemning some persons to death for breaking into Sir John Colquhoun's house and assaulting him and others, as well as robbing them, Eskgrove, after enumerating minutely the details of their crime, closed his address to the prisoners with this climax: "All this you did; and God preserve us! juist when they were sitten doon tae their denner."

When condemning a tailor convicted of stabbing a soldier, the offence was aggravated in Lord Eskgrove's eyes by the fact that "not only did you murder him, whereby he was berea-ved of his life, but you did thrust, or push, or pierce, or project, or propell, the le-thall weapon through the belly-band of his regimental breeches, which were his Majesty's."

One of the most biting of caustic jests made by a judge of the old Court of Session of Scotland, before its reconstruction at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was uttered during the hearing of a claim to a peerage. The claimant was obviously resting his case upon forged documents, and the judge suddenly remarked in the broad dialect of the time, "If ye persevere ye'll nae doot be a peer, but it will be a peer o' anither tree!" The claimant did not appreciate this idea of being grafted, and abandoned the case.

* * * * *

To return to the stories of the earlier period of the eighteenth century, there is one told of Lord Halkerston. He was waited on by a tenant, who with a woeful countenance informed his lordship that one of his cows had gored a cow belonging to the judge, and he feared the injured animal could not live. "Well, then, of course you must pay for it," said his lordship. "Indeed, my lord, it was not my fault, and you know I am but a very poor man."—"I can't help that. The law says you must pay for it. I am not to lose my cow, am I?"—"Well, my lord, if it must be so, I cannot say more. But I forgot what I was saying. It was my mistake entirely. I should have said that it was your lordship's cow that gored mine."—"Oh, is that it? That's quite a different affair. Go along, and don't trouble me just now. I am very busy. Be off, I say!"

And there is one of the testy old Lord Polkemmet when he interrupted Mr. James Ferguson, afterwards Lord Kilkerran, whose energy in enforcing a point in his address to the Bench took the form of beating violently on the table: "Maister Jemmy, dinna dunt; ye may think ye're dunting it intill me, but ye're juist dunting it oot o' me, man."

He was reputed to be dull, and rarely decided a case upon the first hearing. On one occasion, after having heard counsel, among whom was the Hon. Henry Erskine, John Clerk, and others, in a cause of no great difficulty, he addressed the Bar: "Well, Maister Erskine, I heard you, and I thocht ye were richt; syne I heard you, Dauvid, and I thocht ye were richt; and noo I hae heard Maister Clerk, and I think he's richtest amang ye a'. That bauthers me, ye see! Sae I man een tak' hame the process an' wimble-wamble it i' ma wame a wee ower ma toddy, and syne ye'se hae ma interlocutor."

"The Fifteen," as the full Bench of the old Court of Session of Scotland was popularly called, were deliberating on a bill of suspension and interdict relative to certain caravans with wild beasts on the then vacant ground which formed the beginning of the new communication with the new Town of Edinburgh spreading westwards and the Lawnmarket—now known as the Mound. In the course of the proceedings Lord Bannatyne fell fast asleep. The case was disposed of and the next called, which related to a right of lien over certain goods. The learned lord who continued dozing having heard the word "lien" pronounced with an emphatic accent by Lord Meadowbank, raised the following discussion:

Meadowbank: "I am very clear that there was a lien on this property."

Bannatyne: "Certain; but it ought to be chained, because——"

Balmuto: "My lord, it's no a livin' lion, it's the Latin word for lien" (leen).

Hermand: "No, sir; the word is French."

Balmuto: "I thought it was Latin, for it's in italics."

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Henry Home (Lord Kames) was at once one of the most enlightened and learned of Scottish judges of the latter half of the eighteenth century, and one of the most eccentric. His History of Mankind brought him into correspondence with most of the famous men and women of his day, and yet it was his delight to walk up the Canongate and High Street with a half-witted creature who made it his business to collect all the gossip of the town and retail it to his lordship as he made his way to Court in the morning. His humour was very sarcastic, and nothing delighted him more than to observe that it cut home. Leaving the Court one day shortly before his death he met James Boswell, and accosted him with, "Well, Boswell, I shall be meeting your old father one of these days, what shall I say to him how you are getting on now?" Boswell disdained to reply. After a witness in a capital trial at Perth Circuit concluded his evidence, Lord Kames said to him, "Sir, I have one question more to ask you, and remember you are on your oath. You say you are from Brechin?"—"Yes, my lord."—"When do you return thither?"—"To-morrow, my lord."—"Do you know Colin Gillies?"—"Yes, my lord; I know him very well."—"Then tell him that I shall breakfast with him on Tuesday morning."

Lord Kames used to relate a story of a man who claimed the honour of his acquaintance on rather singular grounds. His lordship, when one of the justiciary judges, returning from the North Circuit to Perth, happened one night to sleep at Dunkeld. The next morning, walking towards the ferry, but apprehending he had missed his way, he asked a man whom he met to conduct him. The other answered, with much cordiality, "That I will do with all my heart, my lord. Does not your lordship remember me? My name's John ——. I have had the honour to be before your lordship for stealing sheep!"—"Oh, John, I remember you well; and how is your wife? She had the honour to be before me too, for receiving them, knowing them to be stolen."—"At your lordship's service. We were very lucky; we got off for want of evidence; and I am still going on in the butcher trade."—"Then," replied his lordship, "we may have the honour of meeting again."

Once when on Circuit his lordship had been dozing on the bench, a noise created by the entrance of a new panel woke him, and he inquired what the matter was. "Oh, it's a woman, my lord, accused of child murder."—"And a weel farred b—h too," muttered his lordship, loud enough to be heard by those present.

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John Clerk (Lord Eldin) was one of the best-known advocates at the Scottish Bar in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and probably the last of them to retain the old Scots style of pronunciation. His voice was loud and his manner brow-beating, from which the Bench suffered equally with his brother members of the Bar. He suffered from a lameness in one leg, which was made the subject of a passing remark by two young women in the High Street of Edinburgh one day as Clerk was making his way to Court. "There goes John Clerk the lame lawyer," said one to the other. Clerk overheard the remark, and turning back addressed the speaker: "The lame man, my good woman, not the lame lawyer."

The stories of his advocate days are numerous, and many of them probably well known. In his retention of old Scots pronunciation he got the better of Lord Eldon when pleading before the House of Lords one day. "That's the whole thing in plain English, ma lords," he said. "In plain Scotch, you mean, Mr. Clerk."—"Nae maitter, in plain common sense, ma lords, and that's the same in a' languages." On another occasion before the same tribunal he had frequently referred to water, pronouncing it "watter," when he was interrupted by the inquiry, "Do you spell water with two t's in the north, Mr. Clerk?"—"No, my lord, but we spell mainners wi' twa n's." And there is the well-known one of his use of the word "enough," which in old Scots was pronounced "enow." His repetition of the word in the latter form drew from the Lord Chancellor the remark that at the English Courts the word was pronounced "enough." "Very well, my lord," replied Clerk, and he proceeded with his address till coming to describe his client, who was a ploughman, and his client's claim, he went on: "My lords, my client is a pluffman, who pluffs a pluff gang o' land in the parish of," &c. "Oh! just go on with your own pronunciation, Mr. Clerk," remarked the Lord Chancellor.

His encounters with members of the Scottish Bench were of a more personal character. Indeed, for years he appears to have held most of them in unfeigned contempt. A junior counsel on hearing their lordships give judgment against his client exclaimed that he was surprised at such a decision. This was construed into contempt of Court, and he was ordered to attend at the Bar next morning. Fearing the consequences of his rash remark, he consulted John Clerk, who offered to apologise for him in a way that would avert any unpleasant result. Accordingly, when the name of the delinquent was called, John Clerk rose and addressed the Bench: "I am sorry, my lords, that my young friend so far forgot himself as to treat your lordships with disrespect. He is extremely penitent, and you will kindly ascribe his unintentional insult to his ignorance. You will see at once that it did not originate in that: he said he was surprised at the decision of your lordships. Now, if he had not been very ignorant of what takes place in this Court every day; had he known your lordships but half so long as I have done, he would not be surprised at anything you did."

Two judges, father and son, sat on the Scottish Bench, in succession, under the title of Lord Meadowbank. The second Lord Meadowbank was by no means such a powerful judge as his father. In his Court, Clerk was pressing his construction of some words in a conveyance, and contrasting the use of the word "also" with the use of the word "likewise."

"Surely, Mr. Clerk," said his lordship, "you cannot seriously argue that 'also' means anything different from 'likewise'! They mean precisely the same thing; and it matters not which of them is preferred."—"Not at all, my lord; there is all the difference in the world between these two words. Let us take an instance: your worthy father was a judge on that Bench; your lordship is 'also' a judge on the same Bench; but it does not follow that you are a judge 'like wise.'"

When Meadowbank was about to be raised to the Bench he consulted John Clerk about the title he should adopt. Clerk's suggestion was "Lord Preserve Us." The legal acquirements of James Wolfe Murray were not held in high esteem by his brethren of the Bar, and when he became a judge with the title of Lord Cringletie, Clerk wrote the following clever epigram:

"Necessity and Cringletie Are fitted to a tittle; Necessity has nae law, And Cringletie as little."

The only man on the Bench for whom John Clerk retained a respectfulness not generally exhibited to others in that position was Lord President Blair. After hearing the President overturn without any effort an argument he had laboriously built up, and which appeared to be regarded as unsurmountable by the audience who heard it, Clerk sat still for a few moments, then as he rose to leave the Court he was heard to say: "My man, God Almighty spared nae pains when He made your brains."

When he ascended the Bench in his sixty-fifth year, and when his physical powers were declining, he received the congratulations of his brother judges, one of whom expressed surprise that he had waited so long for the distinction. "Well, you see, I did not get 'doited' just as soon as the rest of you," replied the new-made judge.

Like the generation preceding his, Clerk was of a very convivial disposition. Of him the story is told that one Sunday morning, while people were making their way to church, he appeared at his door in York Place in his dressing-gown and cowl, with a lighted candle in his hand, showing out two friends who had been carousing with him, and in the firm belief that it was about midnight instead of next mid-day. At the termination of a Bannatyne Club dinner, where wit and wine had contended for the mastery, the excited judge on the way to his carriage tumbled downstairs and, miserabile dictu, broke his nose, an accident which compelled him to confine himself to the house for some time. He reappeared, however, with a large patch on his olfactory member, which gave a most ludicrous expression to his face. On someone inquiring how this happened, he said it was the effect of his studies. "Studies!" ejaculated the inquirer. "Yes," growled the judge; "ye've heard, nae doot, about Coke upon Littleton, but I suppose you never before heard of Clerk upon Stair!"

When asked by a friend what was the difference between him and Lord Eldon, the Lord Chancellor of England, Eldin replied; "Oh, there's only an 'i' of a difference."

* * * * *



Charles Hay (Lord Newton), known in private life as "The Mighty," has been described by Lord Cockburn as "famous for law, paunch, whist, claret, and worth." His indulgence in wine and his great bulk made him slumbrous, and when sitting in Court after getting the gist of a case he almost invariably fell fast asleep. Yet it is strange to find it recorded that whenever anything pertinent to the matter under discussion was said he was immediately wide awake and in full possession of his reasoning faculties. While a very zealous but inexperienced counsel was pleading before him, his lordship had been dozing, as usual, for some time, till at last the young man, supposing him asleep, and confident of a favourable judgment in his case, stopped short in his pleading and, addressing the other judges on the Bench, said: "My lords, it is unnecessary that I should go on, as Lord Newton is fast asleep."—"Ay, ay," cried Lord Newton, "you will have proof of that by and by"—when, to the astonishment of the young advocate, after a most luminous view of the case, he gave a very decided and elaborate judgment against him.

Lord Jeffrey himself declared that he only went to Oxford to improve his accent, and according to some of the older members of the Bar of his days, he only lost his Scots accent and did not learn the English. A story of his early days at the Bar is related to the effect that when pleading before Lord Newton the judge stopped him and asked in broad Scots, "Whaur were ye educat', Maister Jawfrey."—"Oxford, my lord."—"Then I doot ye maun gang back there again, for we can mak' nocht o' ye here." But Mr. Jeffrey got back his own. For, before the same judge, happening to speak of an "itinerant violinist," Lord Newton inquired: "D'ye mean a blin' fiddler?"—"Vulgarly so called, my lord," was the reply.

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Circuit Courts were in Scotland, in the eighteenth and early years of the nineteenth century (as in England and Ireland), occasions for a great display in the county towns in which they were held. Whether the judges had arrived on horseback or as later in their private carriages, there was always the procession to the court-house, in which the notabilities of the district took part. Lord Cockburn, who had no sympathy with this part of a judge's duties, thus describes one of his experiences in the early days of his Circuit journeys: "Yet there are some of us who like the procession, though it can never be anything but mean and ludicrous, and who fancy that a line of soldiers, or the more civic array of paltry policemen, or of doited special constables, protecting a couple of judges who flounder in awkward gowns and wigs through ill-paved streets, followed by a few sneering advocates and preceded by two or three sheriffs or their substitutes, with their swords, which trip them, and a provost and some bailie-bodies trying to look grand, the whole defended by a poor iron mace, and advancing each with a different step, to the sound of two cracked trumpets, ill-blown by a couple of drunken royal trumpeters, the spectators all laughing, who fancy that all this pretence of greatness and reality of littleness contributes to the dignity of judges." Things are changed now. Even Lord Cockburn saw the change that the introduction of railways made in the progress of Circuit work, and with them a lesser display and more dignified opening of the courts of justice in local towns. But the older Circuits were times of much feasting and merriment, in which the judges of that period took their full share as well as the members of the Bar accompanying them. In the eyes of some of these old worthies it was part of the dignity of their position to sit down after Court work at two o'clock in the morning to a collation of salmon and roast beef, and drink bumpers of claret and mulled port with the provosts and other local worthies, although they were due in Court that same morning at nine to try some miserable creature for a serious crime. Lord Pitmilly had no stomach for such proceedings, his inclination was stronger for decorum and law than for revelling. Once at a Circuit town he ordered his servant to bring to his room a kettle of hot water. Lord Hermand on his way to dinner at midnight, meeting the servant, said, "God bless me, is he going to make a whole kettle of punch—and before supper too?"—"No, my lord, he's going to bed, but he wants to bathe his feet."—"Feet, sir! what ails his feet? Tell him to put some rum among it, and to give it all to his stomach."

* * * * *

The Circuit sermon was an important part of the duties to which the judges had to attend in the course of their visits in the country. One of these that Lord Cockburn had to listen to was delivered from the text, "What are these that are arrayed in white robes, and whence came they?" There was nothing personal intended, but the ermine on the judges gowns naturally attracted significant glances from the other members of the congregation. A Glasgow clergyman and friend of the judge, not knowing that his lordship was present in his church, preached from the text, "There was in a city a judge which feared not God, neither regarded man." The announcement of the text directed all eyes towards the learned judge, which attracting the preacher's attention nearly prevented him from proceeding further with the service. The judge was the pious Lord Moncreiff, the son of the Rev. Sir Henry Wellwood Moncreiff, and the text stuck to him ever afterwards. But there seemed to have been deliberation in selection of the text made by a south-country minister who, before Lord Justice Boyle and Samuel M'Cormick, Advocate-Depute, preached from I Samuel vii. 16, "And Samuel went from year to year in circuit to Bethel, and Gilgal, and Mizpeh." The two legal gentlemen took offence at this audacious attempt to ridicule the Court, they identifying the places mentioned in the text as representing their circuit towns of Jedburgh, Dumfries, and Ayr. In this connection maybe told the story of Lord Hermand, beside whom stood the clergyman whose duty it was to offer up the opening prayer before the work of the Court began. He seemed to think the company had assembled for no other purpose than to hear him perform, and after praying loud and long his lordship's patience gave way, and with a decided jog of his elbow he exclaimed in a stage whisper, "We've a lot of business to do, sir."

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From a somewhat rare volume printed for private circulation we are permitted to quote the following ballad, the authorship of which may be easily guessed, as the circuiteer who mourns the loss of his Circuit days may be as easily identified.

THE EX-CIRCUITEER'S LAMENT

Ae morning at the dawning I saw a Counsel yawning, And heard him say, in accents that were anything but gay, As sadly he was grinding At a meikle multiplepoinding,— The days o' my Circuits are a' fled away.

Nae banter frae Lord Deas, Nae promises o' fees That never will be paid afore the judgment-day, Nae lies dubbed "information," From the worst rogues in the nation,— The days o' my Circuits are a' fled away.

Nae haveral wutty witness, Displaying his unfitness, Tae see some sma' distinction 'tween a trial and a play, Nae witness primed at lunch Wi' perjuries and punch,— The days o' my Circuits are a' fled away.

Nae laughing-gas orations, Nae treading on the patience Of Judges and of Juries, who will let you say your say, Yet pay but sma' attention To the gems of your invention,— The days o' my Circuits are a' fled away.

Nae mair delightful wondering At a new man blandly blundering, Nae kind hints from the Court that he's gangin far astray, Nae flowery depictions In the teeth of ten convictions,— The days o' my Circuits are a' fled away.

Nae whacking ten years' sentence, Wi' advices o' repentance, And learn in years of leisure to admire the "law's delay." Nae fell female fury, Blackguarding Judge and Jury,— The days o' my Circuits are a' fled away.

Nay grey auld woman sobbing, Nae mair you'll catch her robbing, And a' the Christian virtues henceforth she will display, If the Judge will but have mercy (For the sixteenth time I daresay),— The days o' my Circuits are a' fled away.

Nae processions, nae pageants, Nae pawky country agents, Nae macers, nae trumpeters, wi' tipsy blare and bray, Nae Councillors or Bailie, Or Provost smiling gaily,— The days o' my Circuits are a' fled away.

Nae funny cross-examining, Nae jurymen begammoning, Nae laughter from the audience, nae gallery's hurrah, Nae fleeching for acquittal, Though you don't care a spittle,— The days o' my Circuits are a' fled away.

Nae playing hocus-pocus With the tempus and the locus, Nae pleas in mitigation (a kittle job are they), Nae bonny rapes and reivings, Nae forgeries and thievings,— The days o' my Circuits are a' fled away.

Nae dinners wi' the Judges, Nae drooning a' your grudges In deep, deep draughts o' claret, and a' your senses tae, Nae chatter wise or witty On ticklish points o' dittay,— The days o' my Circuits are a' fled away.

Nae high-jinks after dinner Wi' ony madcap sinner, Nae drinking whisky-toddy until the break o' day, Nae speeches till a hiccup Compels a sudden stick-up,— The nichts o' my Circuits are a' fled away.

Lord Hermand's manner on the Bench conveyed the impression that he was of an impatient, almost savage temper, but in his domestic circle he was one of the warmest-hearted of men, and one with the simplest of tastes. His outbursts on the Bench, too, were emphasised by what, in Scotland, was called "Birr"—the emphatic energy of his pronunciation—which may be imagined but cannot be transcribed in the following dialogue between him and Lord Meadowbank.

Meadowbank: "We are bound to give judgment in terms of the statute, my lords."

Hermand: "A statute! What's a statute? Words—mere words. And am I to be tied down by words? No, my laards; I go by the law of right reason."

He was a great friend of John Scott (Lord Eldon). In a case appealed to the House of Lords, Scott had taken the trouble to write out his speech, and read it over to Hermand, inviting his opinion of it. "It is delightful—absolutely delightful. I could listen to it for ever," said Hermand. "It is so beautifully written, and so beautifully read. But, sir, it's the greatest nonsense! It may do very well for an English Chancellor, but it would disgrace a clerk with us." The blunder that drew forth this criticism was a gross one for a Scottish lawyer, but one an English barrister might readily fall into.

It was put forward in mitigation of the crime that the prisoner was in liquor when, either rashly or accidentally, he stabbed his friend. While the other judges were in favour of a short sentence, Lord Hermand—who had no sympathy with a man who could not carry his liquor—was vehement for transportation: "We are told that there was no malice, and that the prisoner must have been in liquor. In liquor! Why, he was drunk!... And yet he murdered the very man who had been drinking with him! Good God, my laards, if he will do this when he is drunk, what will he not do when he is sober?"

On one of Lord Hermand's circuits a wag put a musical-box, which played "Jack Alive," on one of the seats of the Court. The music struck the audience with consternation, and the judge stared in the air, looking unutterable things, and frantically called out, "Macer, what in the name of God is that?" The macer looked round in vain, when the wag called out, "It's 'Jack Alive,' my lord."—"Dead or alive, put him out this moment," called out the judge. "We can't grip him, my lord."—"If he has the art of hell, let every man assist to arraign him before me, that I may commit him for this outrage and contempt." Everybody tried to discover the offender, and fortunately the music ceased. But it began again half an hour afterwards, and the judge exclaimed, "Is he there again? By all that's sacred, he shall not escape me this time—fence, bolt, bar the doors of the Court, and at your peril let not a man, living or dead, escape." All was bustle and confusion, the officers looked east and west, and up in the air and down on the floor; but the search was in vain. The judge at last began to suspect witchcraft, and exclaimed, "This is a deceptio auris—it is absolute delusion, necromancy, phantasmagoria." And to the day of his death the judge never understood the precise origin of this unwonted visitation.

On another occasion, in his own Court in the Parliament House, he was annoyed by a noise near the door, and called to the macer, "What is that noise?"—"It's a man, my lord."—"What does he want?"—"He wants in, my lord."—"Keep him out!" The man, it seems, did get in, and soon afterwards a like noise was renewed, and his lordship again demanded, "What's the noise there?"—"It's the same man, my lord."—"What does he want now?"—"He wants out, my lord."—"Then keep him in—I say, keep him in!"

* * * * *

Lord President Campbell, after the fashion of those times, was somewhat addicted to browbeating young counsel; and as bearding a judge on the Bench is not a likely way to rise in favour, his lordship generally got it all his own way. Upon one occasion, however, he caught a tartar. His lordship had what are termed pig's eyes, and his voice was thin and weak. Corbet, a bold and sarcastic counsel in his younger days, had been pleading before the Inner House, and as usual the President commenced his attack, when his intended victim thus addressed him: "My lord, it is not for me to enter into any altercation with your lordship, for no one knows better than I do the great difference between us; you occupy the highest place on the Bench, and I the lowest at the Bar; and then, my lord, I have not your lordship's voice of thunder—I have not your lordship's rolling eye of command."

* * * * *



Robert Macqueen (Lord Braxfield), the prototype of Stevenson's "Weir of Hermiston," was known as the "hanging judge"—the Judge Jeffreys of Scotland; but he was a sound judge. He argued a point in a colloquial style, asking a question, and himself supplying the answer in his clear, abrupt manner. But he was illiterate, and without the least desire for refined enjoyment, holding in disdain natures less coarse than his own; he shocked the feelings of those even of an age which had less decorum than prevailed in that which succeeded, and would not be tolerated by the working classes of to-day. Playing whist with a lady, he exclaimed, "What are ye doin', ye damned auld ...," and then recollecting himself, "Your pardon's begged, madam; I took ye for my wife." When his butler gave up his place because his lordship's wife was always scolding him: "Lord," he exclaimed, "ye've little to complain o'; ye may be thankfu' ye're no mairred to her."

His most notorious sayings from the Bench were uttered during the trials for sedition towards the end of the eighteenth century, and even some of these are too coarse for repetition. "Ye're a very clever chiel," he said to one of the prisoners; "but ye wad be nane the waur o' a hangin'." And to a juror arriving late in Court he said, "Come awa, Maister Horner, come awa and help us to hang ane o' they damned scoondrels." Hanging was his term for all kinds of punishment.

To Margarot, a Baptist minister of Dundee—another of the political prisoners of that time—he said, "Hae ye ony coonsel, man?"—"No," replied Margarot. "Dae ye want tae hae ony appointed?" continued the Justice-Clerk. "No," replied the prisoner, "I only want an interpreter to make me understand what your lordship says."

* * * * *

We have already referred to Lord Moncreiff's piety, and to it must be added his great simplicity of nature. Like many of his predecessors, he had a habit of making long speeches to prisoners on their conviction; but his intention was to help them to a better mode of life, not to aggravate their feelings by silly or coarse remarks. This habit, however, led him occasionally into enunciating principles which rather astonished his friends. In a murder case he found that the woman killed was not the wife of the prisoner but his mistress, which led his lordship to explain to the prisoner that it might have been some apology for his crime had the woman been his wife, because there was difficulty in getting rid of her any other way. But the victim being only his associate he could have left her at any time, and consequently there were absolutely no ameliorating circumstances in the case. From this point of view it would seem to have been (in Lord Moncreiff's eyes) less criminal to murder a wife than a mistress. In another, a bigamy case, after referring to the perfidy and cruelty to the women and their relations, Lord Cockburn reports him to have said: "All this is bad; but your true iniquity consists in this, that you degraded that holy ceremony which our blessed Saviour condescended to select as the type of the connection between him and His redeemed Church."

In the Court of Session, the judges who do not attend or give a proper excuse for their absence are (or were) liable to a fine. This, however, is never enforced: but it is customary on the first day of the session for the absentee to send an excuse to the Lord President. Lord Stonefield having sent an excuse, and the Lord President mentioning that he had done so, the Lord Justice-Clerk said: "What excuse can a stout fellow like him hae?"—"My lord," said the President, "he has lost his wife." To which the Justice-Clerk replied: "Has he? That is a gude excuse indeed, I wish we had a' the same."

* * * * *

Lord Cockburn's looks, tones, language, and manner were always such as to make one think that he believed every word he said. On one occasion, before he was raised to the Bench, when defending a murderer, although he failed to convince the judge and jurymen of the innocence of his client, yet he convinced the murderer himself that he was innocent. Sentence of death was pronounced, and the day of execution fixed for the 3rd of March. As Lord Cockburn was passing the condemned man, the latter seized him by the gown, saying: "I have not got justice!" To this the advocate coolly replied: "Perhaps not; but you'll get it on the 3rd of March."

Cockburn's racy humour displayed itself in another serious case; one in which a farm-servant was charged with maiming his master's cattle by cutting off their tails. A consultation was held on the question of the man's mental condition at which the farmer was present, and at the close of it some conversation took place about the disposal of the cattle. Turning to the farmer Cockburn said that they might be sold, but that he would have to dispose of them wholesale for he could not now retail them.

He was walking on the hillside on his estate of Bonaly, near Edinburgh, talking to his shepherd, and speculating about the reasons why his sheep lay on what seemed to be the least sheltered and coldest situation on the hill. Said his lordship: "John, if I were a sheep I would lie on the other side of the hill." The shepherd answered: "Ay, my lord; but if ye had been a sheep ye would have had mair sense."

Sitting long after the usual hour listening to a prosy counsel, Lord Cockburn was commiserated by a friend as they left the Court together with the remark: "Counsel has encroached very much on your time, my lord."—"Time, time," exclaimed his lordship; "he has exhausted time and encroached on eternity."

When a young advocate, Cockburn was a frequent visitor at Niddrie Marischal, near Edinburgh, the residence of Mr. Wauchope. This gentleman was very particular about church-going, but one Sunday he stayed at home and his young guest started for the parish church accompanied by one of his host's handsomest daughters. On their way they passed through the garden, and were so beguiled by the gooseberry bushes that the time slipped away and they found themselves too late for the service. At dinner the laird inquired of his daughter what the text was, and when she failed to tell him he put the question to Cockburn, who at once replied: "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me she gave me of the fruit and I did eat."

Jeffrey and Cockburn were counsel together in a case in which it was sought to prove that the heir of an estate was of low capacity, and therefore incapable of administrating his affairs. Jeffrey had vainly attempted to make a country witness understand his meaning as he spoke of the mental imbecility and impaired intellect of the party. Cockburn rose to his relief, and was successful at once. "D'ye ken young Sandy ——?"—"Brawly," said the witness; "I've kent him sin' he was a laddie."—"An' is there onything in the cratur, d'ye think?"—"Deed," responded the witness, "there's naething in him ava; he wadna ken a coo frae a cauf!"

When addressing the jury in a case in which an officer of the army was a witness, Jeffrey frequently referred to him as "this soldier." The witness, who was in Court, bore this for a time, but at last, exasperated, exclaimed, "I am not a soldier, I'm an officer!"—"Well, gentlemen of the jury," proceeded Jeffrey, "this officer, who on his own statement is no soldier," &c.

Patrick, Lord Robertson, one of the senators of the College of Justice, was a great humorist. He was on terms of intimacy with the late Mr. Alexander Douglas, W.S., who, on account of the untidiness of his person, was known by the sobriquet of "Dirty Douglas." Lord Robertson invited his friend to accompany him to a ball. "I would go," said Mr. Douglas, "but I don't care about my friends knowing that I attend balls."—"Why, Douglas," replied the senator, "put on a well-brushed coat and a clean shirt, and nobody will know you." When at the Bar, Robertson was frequently entrusted with cases by Mr. Douglas. Handing his learned friend a fee in Scottish notes, Mr. Douglas remarked: "These notes, Robertson, are, like myself, getting old."—"Yes, they're both old and dirty, Douglas," rejoined Robertson.

When Robertson was attending an appeal case in the House of Lords he received great attention from Lord Brougham. This gave rise to a report in the Parliament House of Edinburgh that the popular Tory advocate had "ratted" to the Liberal side in politics, which found expression in the following jeu d'esprit:

"When Brougham by Robertson was told He'd condescend a place to hold, The Chancellor said, with wondering eyes, Viewing the Rat's tremendous size, 'That you a place would hold is true, But where's the place that would hold you?'"

Lord Rutherford when at the Bar put an illustration to the Bench in connection with a church case. "Suppose the Justiciary Court condemned a man to be hanged, however unjustly, could that man come into this Court of Session and ask your lordships to interfere?" and he turned round very majestically to Robertson opposing him. "Oh, my lords," said Robertson, "a case of suspension, clearly."

When a sheriff, Rutherford, dining with a number of members of the legal profession, had to reply to the toast, "The Bench of Scotland." In illustration of a trite remark that all litigants could not be expected to have the highest regard for the judges who have tried their cases, he told the following story: A worthy but unfortunate south-country farmer had fought his case in the teeth of adverse decisions in the Lower Courts to the bitter end in one of the divisions of the Court of Session. After the decision of this tribunal affirming the judgment he had appealed against, and thus finally blasting his fondest hopes, he was heard to mutter as he left the Court: "They ca' themselves senators o' the College o' Justice, but it's ma opeenion they're a' the waur o' drink!"

* * * * *

It was only a small point of law, but the two counsel were hammering at each other tooth and nail. They had been submitting this and that to his lordship for twenty minutes, and growing more and more heated as they argued. At last: "You're an ass, sir!" shrieked one. "And you're a liar, sir!" roared the other. Then the judge woke up. "Now that counsel have identified each other," said he, "let us proceed to the disputed points."

A recent eminent judge of the Scottish Bench when sitting to an artist for his portrait was asked what he thought of the likeness. His lordship's reply was that he thought it good enough, but he would have liked "to see a little more dislike to Gladstone's Irish Bills in the expression."

Lord Shand's shortness of stature has been a theme of several stories. When he left Edinburgh after sitting as a judge of the Court of Session for eighteen years, one of his colleagues suggested that a statue ought to be erected to him. "Or shall we say a statuette?" was the remark of another friend. His lordship lived at Newhailes—the property of one of the Dalrymple family, several members of which were eminent judges in the late seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries—and travelled to town by rail. The guard was a pawky Aberdonian, and had evidently been greatly struck by Lord Shand's appearance, for his customary salutation to him, delivered no doubt in a parental and patronising fashion, was: "And fu (how) are ye the day, ma lordie?" His lordship's manner of receiving this greeting is not recorded. Still another anecdote on the same subject is that when still an advocate, it was proposed to make Mr. Shand a Judge of Assize. On the proposal being mentioned to a colleague famous for his caustic wit, the latter with a good-humoured sneer which raised a hearty laugh at the expense of his genial friend, remarked: "Ah, a judge of a size, indeed."

* * * * *



Lord Young's wit was of this caustic turn and not infrequently was intended to sting the person to whom it was addressed. An advocate was wending his weary way through a case one day, and in the course of making a point he referred to a witness who had deponed that he had seen two different things at one time and consequently contradicted himself. Lord Young gave vent to the feelings of his colleagues in the Second Division of the Court, when he interrupted thus:

"Oh, Mr. B——, I can see more than two things at one time. I can see your paper, and beyond your paper I can see you, and beyond you I can see the clock, and I can see that you have been labouring for an hour over a point that is capable of being expressed in a sentence."

In the course of an argument in the same division, counsel had occasion to refer to "Fraser" (a brother judge) "on Husband and Wife." Lord Young, interrupting, asked: 'Hasn't Fraser another book?'—'Yes, my lord, 'Master and Servant!''—'Well,' said Lord Young, 'isn't that the same thing?'

Owing to a vacancy on the Bench having been kept open for a long period, Lord Young's roll had become very heavy. Hearing that a new colleague had been appointed, and like the late judge had adopted a title ending in "hill," he gratefully quoted the lines of the one hundred and twenty-first psalm:

"I to the hills will lift mine eyes, From whence doth come mine aid."

Before the same judge, two prominent advocates in their day were debating a case. One of them was a particularly well-known figure, the feature of whose pinafore, if he wore one, would be its extensive girth. The other advocate, who happened to be rather slim, was addressing his lordship: "My learned friend and I are particularly at one upon this point. I may say, my lord, that we are virtually in the same boat." Here his opponent broke in: "No, no, my lord, we are nothing of the kind. I do not agree with that." Lord Young, leaning across the bench, remarked: "No, I suppose you would need a whole boat to yourself."

It is also attributed to Lord Young that, when Mr. Baird of Cambusdoon bequeathed a large sum of money to the Church of Scotland to found the lectureship delivered under the auspices of the Baird Trust, he remarked that it was the highest fire insurance premium he had ever heard of. "Possibly, my lord," observed a fire insurance manager who heard the remark; "but you will admit that cases occur where the premium scarcely covers the risk."

Lord Guthrie tells that when, as an advocate, he was engaged in a case before Lord Young, he mentioned that his client was a Free Church minister. "Well," said Lord Young, "that may be, but for all that he may perhaps be quite a respectable man."

And there is the story that when Mr. Young was Lord Advocate for Scotland a vacancy occurred on the Bench and two names were mentioned in connection with it. One was that of Mr. Horne, Dean of Faculty, a very tall man, and the other Lord Shand. "So, Mr. Young," said a friend, "you'll be going to appoint Horne?"—"I doubt if I will get his length," was the reply. "Oh, then," queried the friend, "you'll be going to appoint Shand?"—"It's the least I could do," answered the witty Lord Advocate.

* * * * *

"What is your occupation?" asked Lord Ardwall of a witness in a case. "A miner, sir."—"Good; and how old are you?"—"Twenty, sir."—"Ah, then you are a minor in more senses than one." Whereat, no doubt, the Court laughed. "Now, my lord, we come to the question of commission received by the witness, which I was forgetting," said a counsel before the same judge one day. "Ah, don't commit the omission of omitting the commission," replied his lordship.

An unfortunate miner had been hit on the head by a lump of coal, and the judges of the First Division of the Court of Session were considering whether his case raised a question of law or of fact. "The only law I can see in the matter," said Lord Maclaren, "is the law of gravitation."

In a fishing case heard in the Court of Session some years ago, a good deal of evidence was led on the subject of taking immature salmon from a river in the north. The case was an important one, and the evidence was taken down in shorthand notes and printed for the use of the judge and counsel next day. The evidence of one of the witnesses with respect to certain of the salmon taken was that "some of them were kelts." When his lordship turned over the pages of the printed evidence next morning to refresh his memory, he was astonished to find it stated by one of the witnesses in regard to the salmon that "some of them wore kilts."

Many other stories, particularly of the older judges, might be given, were they not too well known. We may therefore close this chapter with the following epigram by a Scottish writer, which is decidedly pointed and clever, and has the additional merit of being self-explanatory:

"He was a burglar stout and strong, Who held, 'It surely can't be wrong, To open trunks and rifle shelves, For God helps those who help themselves.' But when before the Court he came, And boldly rose to plead the same, The judge replied—'That's very true; You've helped yourself—now God help you!'"



CHAPTER SIX

THE ADVOCATES OF SCOTLAND

"Ye lawyers who live upon litigants' fees, And who need a good many to live at your ease, Grave or gay, wise or witty, whate'er your degree, Plain stuff, or Queen's Counsel, take counsel from me, When a festive occasion your spirit unbends, You should never forget the profession's best friends; So we'll send round the wine and a bright bumper fill To the jolly Testator who makes his own will."

NEAVES: Songs and Verses.



CHAPTER SIX

THE ADVOCATES OF SCOTLAND

Since days when Sir Walter Scott gathered round him at the fireplace in the Parliament Hall of Edinburgh a company of young brother advocates to hear the latest of Lord Eskgrove's eccentric sayings from the Bench, that rendezvous has been the favourite resort for story-telling among succeeding generations of counsel. While the Court is in session, they vary their daily walk up and down the hall by lounging round the spot where the future Wizard of the North proved a strong counter-attraction to many an interesting case being argued before a Lord Ordinary in the alcoves on the opposite side of the hall, which was then the "Outer House." It is even asserted that this same fireplace is the hatchery of many of the amusing paragraphs daily appearing in a column of a certain Edinburgh newspaper. But of all the witticisms that have enlivened the dull hours of the briefless barrister in that historic hall during the past century, none will stand the test of time or be read with so much pleasure as those of that prince of wits, the Hon. Henry Erskine.

* * * * *



Hairry, as he was familiarly called both by judge and counsel, was in an eminent degree the "advocate of the people." It is said that a poor man in a remote district of Scotland thus answered an acquaintance who wished to dissuade him from "going to law" with a wealthy neighbour, by representing the hopelessness of being able to meet the expenses of litigation. "Ye dinna ken what ye're saying, maister," replied the litigious northerner; "there's no' a puir man in a' Scotland need want a freen' or fear a foe, sae lang as Hairry Erskine lives."

When the autocratic reign of Henry Dundas as Lord Advocate was for a time eclipsed, Henry Erskine was his successor in the Whig interest. In his good-humoured way Dundas proposed to lend Erskine his embroidered gown, suggesting that it would not be long before he (Dundas) would again be in office. "Thank you," said Hairry, "I am well aware it is made to suit any party, but it will never be said of me that I assumed the abandoned habits of my predecessor."

Having been speaking in the Outer House at the Bar of Lord Swinton, a very good, but a very slow and deaf judge, Erskine was called away to Lord Braxfield's Court. On appearing his lordship said: "Well, Dean" (he was then Dean of the Faculty of Advocates), "what is this you've been talking so loudly about to my Lord Swinton?"—"About a cask of whisky, my lord, but I found it no easy matter to make it run in his lordship's head."

He was once defending a client, a lady of the name of Tickell, before one of the judges who was an intimate friend, and he opened his address to his lordship in these terms: "Tickell, my client, my lord." But the judge was equal to the occasion and interrupted him by saying: "Tickle her yourself, Harry, you're as able to do it as I am."

Lord Balmuto was a ponderous judge and not very "gleg in the uptak" (did not readily see a point), and retained the utmost gravity while the whole Court was convulsed with laughter at some joke of the witty Dean. Hours later, when another case was being heard, the judge would suddenly exclaim: "Eh, Maister Hairry, a' hae ye noo, a' hae ye noo, vera guid, vera guid."

Hugo Arnot, a brother advocate, a tall, cadaverous-looking man, who suffered from asthma, was one day munching a speldin (a sun-dried whiting or small haddock, a favourite article supplied at that time, and till a generation ago, by certain Edinburgh shops). Erskine coming up to Arnot, the latter explained that he was having his lunch. "So I see," said Harry, "and you're very like your meat." On another occasion these two worthies were discussing future punishment for errors of the flesh, Arnot taking a liberal, and Erskine a strongly Calvinist view. As they were parting Erskine said to Arnot, referring to his spare figure:

"For —— and blasphemy by the mercy of heaven To flesh and to blood much may be forgiven, But I've searched all the Scriptures and text I find none That the same is extended to skin and to bone."

Erskine's brother, the extremely eccentric Lord Buchan, who thought himself as great a jester as his two younger brothers, the Lord Chancellor of England and the Dean of Faculty of Advocates, one day putting his head below the lock of a door, exclaimed: "See, Harry, here's Locke on the Human Understanding."—"Rather a poor edition, my lord," replied the younger brother.

Sir James Colquhoun, Baronet of Luss, Principal Clerk of Session, towards the close of the eighteenth century was one of the odd characters of his time, and was made the butt of all the wags of the Parliament House. On one occasion, whilst Henry Erskine was in the Court in which Sir James was on duty, he amused himself by making faces at the Principal Clerk, who was greatly annoyed at the strange conduct of the tormenting lawyer. Unable to bear it longer, he disturbed the gravity of the Court by rising from the table at which he sat and exclaiming, "My lord, my lord, I wish you would speak to Harry, he's aye making faces at me." Harry, however, looked as grave as a judge and the work of the Court proceeded, until Sir James, looking again towards the bar, witnessed a new grimace from his tormentor, and convulsed Bench, Bar, and audience by roaring out: "There, there, my lord, see he's at it again."

Hugo Arnot's eccentricity took various forms. In his house in South St. Andrew Street, in the new town of Edinburgh, he greatly annoyed a lady who lived in the same tenement by the violence with which he kept ringing his bell for his servant. The lady complained; but what was her horror next day to hear several pistol-shots fired in the house, which was Arnot's new method of demanding his valet's immediate attendance.

In his professional capacity, however, he was guided by a high sense of honour and of moral obligation. In a case submitted for his consideration, which seemed to him to possess neither of these qualifications, he with a very grave face said to his client: "Pray what do you suppose me to be?"—"Why, sir," answered the client, "I understood you to be a lawyer."—"I thought, sir," replied Arnot, "you took me for a scoundrel." On another occasion he was consulted by a lady, not remarkable either for youth or beauty or for good temper, as to the best method of getting rid of the importunities of a rejected admirer. After having told her story and claiming a relationship with him because her own name was Arnot, she wound up with: "Ye maun advise me what I ought to do with this impertinent fellow."—"Oh, marry him by all means, it's the only way to get quit of his importunities," was Arnot's advice. "I would see him hanged first," retorted the lady. "Nay, madam," rejoined Arnot, "marry him directly as I said before, and by the Lord Harry he'll soon hang himself."

* * * * *

Of the convivial habits of the Bar as well as the Bench in Scotland at this period many stories are told. The Second Lord President Dundas once refused to listen to counsel who obviously showed signs of having come into Court fresh from a tavern debauch. The check given by the President appeared to effect some sobering of the counsel's faculties and he immediately addressed his lordship upon the dignity of the Faculty of Advocates, winding up a long harangue with: "It is our duty and our privilege to speak, my lord, and it is your duty and your privilege to hear."

Another counsel in a similar condition of haziness hurriedly entered the Court and took up the case in which he was engaged; but forgetting for which side he had been fee'd, to the unutterable amazement of the agent, delivered a long and fervent speech in the teeth of the interests he had been expected to support. When at last the agent made him understand the mistake he had made, he with infinite composure resumed his oration by saying: "Such, my lord, is the statement you will probably hear from my brother on the opposite side of the case. I shall now show your lordship how utterly untenable are the principles and how distorted are the facts upon which this very specious statement has proceeded." And so he went over the same ground and most angelically refuted himself from the beginning of his former pleading to the end.

* * * * *



When a barrister, pleading before Lord Mansfield, pronounced a Latin word with a false quantity his lordship rarely let the opportunity pass without exhibiting his own precise knowledge of that language. "My lords," said the Scottish advocate, Crosbie, at the bar of the House of Lords, "I have the honour to appear before your lordships as counsel for the Curătors."—"Ugh," groaned the Westminster-Oxford law lord, softening his reproof by an allusion to his Scottish nationality, "Curātors, Mr. Crosbie, Curātors: I wish our countrymen would pay a little more attention to prosody."—"My lord," replied Mr. Crosbie, with delightful readiness and composure, "I can assure you that our countrymen are very proud of your lordship as the greatest senātor and orātor of the present age."

A very young Scottish advocate, afterwards an eminent judge on the Scottish Bench, pleading before the House of Lords, ventured to challenge some early judgments of that House, on which he was abruptly asked by Lord Brougham: "Do you mean, sir, to call in question the solemn decisions of this venerable tribunal?"—"Yes, my lord," coolly replied the young counsel, "there are some people in Scotland who are bold enough to dispute the soundness of some of your lordship's own decisions."

* * * * *

Sheriff Logan, when pleading before Lord Cunningham in a case which involved numerous points of form, on some of which he ventured to express an opinion, was repeatedly interrupted by old Beveridge, the judge's clerk—a great authority on matters of form—who unfortunately possessed a very large nasal organ, which literally overhung his mouth. "No, no," said the clerk, as the sheriff was quietly explaining the practice in certain cases. On which Logan, somewhat nettled at the blunt interruption, coolly replied: "But, my lord, I say: 'Yes, yes, yes,' in spite of Mr. Beveridge's noes."

In the days of Sheriff Harper, Mr. Richard Lees, solicitor, Galashiels, was engaged in a case for a client who was not overburdened with the necessary funds for legal proceedings. However, he was thought good enough for the expenses in the case. The action went against Mr. Lees' client, and then Mr. Lees rose to plead for modified expenses. But the client leant across to speak to the lawyer and said in a hoarse whisper audible over the Court: "Dinna stent (limit) yoursels for the expenses for a haena a fardin'." This was too much even for the gravity of the Bench.

Not many years ago, in the High Court at Glasgow, a case was heard before an eminent judge still on the Scottish Bench, in which the accused had committed a very serious assault and robbery. He was unable to engage counsel for his defence, and the usual course was adopted of putting his case in the hands of "counsel for the poor." There was really no defence; but the young advocate who undertook the task had to make the best of it, and the plea he put forward was that the accused was so drunk at the time he did not know what he was doing. It was the best thing he could do in the circumstances, as all the success he could expect to make with a well-known felon was a mitigation of the sentence. When it came to his time to address the Court, he set out in the following fashion: "My lord and gentlemen of the jury, you all know what it is to be drunk."

It is most important to be exact in stating the times of the movements of a person accused of murder. In a recent case this point was very minutely examined by an advocate in the Scottish Court. One witness deponed that she saw the accused in a certain place at 5.40 P.M. "Are you sure," asked the learned counsel in a tone calculated to make a witness not quite sure after all, "are you sure it was not twenty minutes to six?" And then he seemed surprised at the laughter his question had raised.

When Mr. Ludovick Mair, who was a very short man, was Sheriff-Substitute of Lanarkshire, he was called upon, at an Ayrshire Burns Club dinner, to propose the toast of the "Ayrshire Lasses." After alluding to the honour that had been conferred upon him, happily said that "Provided his fair clients were prepared to be 'contented wi' little and canty wi' mair,' he had no compunction in performing the agreeable duty."

In the Glasgow Small Debt Court where the sheriff frequently presided, a young lawyer's exhaustive eloquence in striving to prove that his client was not due the sum sued for, drew from his lordship the following interruption: "Excuse me, sir, but throughout the conflict and turmoil engendered by this desperate dispute with the pursuer I presume the British Empire is not in any danger?"—"No, my lord," came the reply, "but I fear after that interrogation from your lordship my client's case is?"

On one occasion the sheriff, becoming impatient with an agent's protracted speech, rebuked him thus: "Be brief, be brief, my dear sir; time is short and eternity is long!" And again on being asked by an agent not to allow a witty old Irishman to act as the spokesman of "the defendant" on the ground that the Irishman was not now in the defendant's employment, the sheriff sternly said to the would-be witness: "Now, answer me truthfully, mirthful Michael, are you or are you not in the defendant's employment?"—"Well, my lord of lords," was the reply, "that is to say, in the learned phraseology of the law, pro tem I am and ultimo and proximo I amn't."

* * * * *

Two stories are told of the late Sheriff Balfour. His lordship was addressing a prisoner at unusual length, when he was interrupted more than once by a sotto voce observation from his then clerk, who was very impatient when the luncheon hour drew near. Accustomed to this interruption, the sheriff, as a rule, took no notice of them. On this occasion, however, he threw down his quill with a show of annoyance, leaned back in his chair, and addressed the interrupter thus: "I say, Mr. ——, are you, or am I, sheriff here?" Promptly came the unabashed reply: "You, of course; but your lordship knows that this woman has been frequently here," meaning that it was idle to address words of counsel to the prisoner. On another occasion, the sheriff was pulled up by a male prisoner, who took exception to his version of the story of the crime, and concluded: "So you see I've got your lordship there."—"Have you?" was the sheriff's rejoinder. "No, but I've got you—three months hard."

A law agent was talking at length against an opinion which Sheriff Balfour had already indicated. Twice the sheriff essayed in vain to stay the torrent that was flowing uselessly past the mill. At last, in a more decided tone, he asked the agent to allow him just one word, after which he would engage not to interrupt him again. "Certainly, milord," said the agent. "Decree," said the sheriff.

* * * * *

Counsel who are briefless and who spend much time in perambulating the floor of Parliament Hall should be as careful in their dress as their more fortunate neighbours who jostle each other in the lobbies as they rush from one Court to another. A company of Americans visiting the Courts one day made a casual inquiry of one of the advocates "in waiting," who politely offered to show them all that is to be seen. As they were leaving, one of the party caught hold of a passing solicitor and after apologising for stopping him inquired: "This—this—this gentleman has been very good in showing us over your beautiful place. Would it be correct to give him something?"—"Yes, certainly," said the busy practitioner, "and it will be the first fee he has earned, to my knowledge, for the last ten years."

An advocate of the present day, in trying to induce the Second Division of the Court of Session to reverse a decision pronounced in Glasgow Sheriff Court somewhat startled the Bench by reminding them that their lordships were only mortal after all. "Are you quite sure of that?" asked the presiding judge. Counsel judiciously refrained from replying to this poser. The incident recalls an occasion in the Second Division when it was presided over by Lord Justice-Clerk Moncreiff. A junior counsel was debating a case in the division, and, apparently finding he was not making much headway, invited their lordships to imagine for the moment that they were navvies, and to look at the question from the point of view of the worker. In stately tones the Lord Justice-Clerk informed the audacious junior that his invitation was unsuited to the dignity of the Court.

* * * * *

A learned counsel at the Bar prided himself on the juvenility of his appearance, and boasted that he looked twenty years younger than he was. He was cross-examining a very prepossessing and uncommonly self-possessed young woman as to the age of a person whom she knew quite well, but could get no satisfactory answer. "Well," he persisted, "but surely you must have been able to make a good guess at his age, having seen him often."—"People don't always look their age."—"No, but you can surely form a good idea from their looks. Now, how old should you say I am?" "You might be sixty by your looks, but judging by the questions you ask I should say about sixteen!"

Much amusement is afforded by the answers given by witnesses to judges and counsel. They form the theme of legions of stories, and we append a selection to this chapter of legal wit of the Bar.

An Irishman before Lord Ardwall was giving evidence on the question whether having lived eleven years in Glasgow he was a domiciled Scotsman. He swore that he was, and as a question of succession depended upon the domicile the point was of importance. The opposing counsel thought he had him cornered when on the list of voters for an Irish constituency he found the witness's name. But Pat was equal to the occasion. "It's a safe sate," he said; "they never revise the lists," and by way of clinching the argument, he added: "Shure there's men in Oireland who have been in their graves for twenty years who voted at the last election."

Legal gentlemen sometimes resort to methods not quite in accordance with usual practice to elicit information from stubborn witnesses. In Glasgow Sheriff Court one day a somewhat long and involved question was addressed by the cross-examining agent to a witness who, from his stout build and imperturbable manner, looked the embodiment of Scottish caution. The witness, who was not to be so easily "had," having regarded his questioner with a steady gaze for the space of almost a minute, at last broke silence: "Would you mind, sir," said he, "just repeating that question, and splitting it into bits?" And after the Court had regained its composure the discomfited agent humbly proceeded to subdivide the question.

* * * * *

In the old days when Highlanders "kist oot" (quarrelled) they resorted to the claymore, but the hereditary fighting spirit appears nowadays in an appeal to the law. Perth Sheriff Courts witness many a "bout" between the stalwarts, who are not amiss to clash all round if need be. "You must have been in very questionable company at the show?" inquired a sheriff of a farmer. "Weel, ma lord—you wis the last gentleman I spoke to that day as I was coming oot!" was his reply.

The pointed insinuation to another witness in a claim case at the same Court. "I think I have seen you here rather often of late," drew the reply, "Nae doot, if a'm no takin' onybody here—then it's them that's takin' me!"

Quite recently an old farmer in Perthshire, who had been rather severely cross-examined by the opposing counsel, had his sweet revenge when the sheriff, commenting on the case, inquired: "There seems to be a great deal of dram-dramming at C—— on Tuesdays, I imagine?"—"Aye, whiles," was the canny reply—and immediately following it up, as he pointed across at the rival lawyer, he continued—"an' that nicker ower there can tak' a bit dram wi' the best o' them!"

A young advocate, as junior in a licensing club case, had to cross-examine the certifying Justice of the Peace who was very diffuse and rather evasive in his answers. "Speak a little more simply and to the point, please," said counsel mildly. "You are a little ambiguous, you know."—"I am not, sir," replied the witness indignantly; "I have been teetotal for a year."

It is a fact well known to lawyers that it is a risky thing to call witnesses to character unless you know exactly beforehand what they are going to say. Here is an instance in point. "You say you have known the prisoner all your life?" said the counsel. "Yes, sir," was the reply. "Now," was the next question, "in your opinion is he a man who is likely to have been guilty of stealing this money?"—"Well," said the witness thoughtfully, "how much was it?"

In a County Sheriff Court his lordship addressed a witness: "You said you drove a milk-cart, didn't you?" "No, sir, I didn't."—"Don't you drive a milk-cart?" "No, sir."—"Ah! then what do you do, sir?"—"I drive a horse."

A well-known lawyer not now in practice, who had risen from humble parentage to be Procurator Fiscal of his county, once got a sharp retort from a witness in Court. It was a case of law-burrows—well known in Scotland—which requires a person to give security against doing violence to another. A lady had assaulted a priest who in the discharge of his duty had been visiting her husband—a member of his flock. The lady was herself a Protestant, and suspected the reverend gentleman of designs on her husband's property for behoof of his Church. The witness in the box was prepared on every point, and the following dialogue ensued—P.F.: "Who was your father?" Lady: "My father was a gentleman." P.F.: "Yes, but who was he?" Lady: "He was a good man and much respected, although he didn't make such a noise in the world as yours." The P.F.'s father had been the town crier.

Perhaps it was to the same lawyer who asked the question of a labouring man: "Are you the husband of the previous witness?" and got the answer: "I dinna ken onything aboot the previous witness, but if it was Mrs. ——, a'm her man."

* * * * *

The macer who calls the cases coming before the judges in Court was in older days an interesting personality. Lord Cockburn recalls the time when this duty was performed by the "crier" putting his head out of a small window high up in the wall of the Parliament House and shouting down to the counsel and agents assembled below him. Now it is performed from a raised dais on the floor of the hall, and it is no joke when the macer has to call in stentorian tones such a case as "Dampskibsselskabet Danmary v. John Smith." Learned members of the Faculty approach such a difficulty otherwise. During "motions" one day an astute counsel said, "In number 11 of your lordship's roll." "What did you call it?" inquired the judge. "I called it number 11," naively replied counsel. The case was "Fiskiveidschlutafjelagid Island v. Standard Fishing Company."

* * * * *

The administration of the oath in Courts of Justice is apt to become perfunctory, and some sheriffs shorten the formula, so that it is administered somewhat after this fashion: "I swearbalmitygod, that I will tell the truth, the wholetruth, anothingbuthetruth." There is one sheriff more punctilious, and recently he administered the oath to a female witness, making her recite it in sections after him. "I swear by Almighty God" (pause). Witness: "I swear by Almighty God."—"As I shall answer to God." Witness: "As I shall answer to God."—"At the Great Day of Judgment." The witness stumbled over this clause, and the sheriff had to repeat it twice. As she ran more glibly over the concluding words, the sheriff remarked: "It's extraordinary how many people come to this Court who seem never to have heard of that great occasion."

This is what took place in a Glasgow Court. Sheriff: "Repeat this after me, 'I swear by Almighty God.'" Witness: "I swear by Almighty God." Sheriff: "I will tell the truth." Witness: "I will tell the truth." Sheriff: "The whole truth." Witness: "I HOPE so!"

In Edinburgh Sheriff Small Debt Court the oath was administered to a witness who was dull of hearing. "I swear by Almighty God," said the sheriff. The witness put his hollowed hand to his ear and asked: "Wha dae ye sweer by?" Many Court reporters have heard a witness swear to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and anything but the truth"; and one old lady (mistaking certain words recited by the judge) affirmed her determination to tell the truth "with a great deal of judgment."

* * * * *

As we indicated at the beginning of this volume, stories of wit and humour from the ranks of agents in the legal profession are much rarer than in those of the Bench and the Bar. From the Court of Session Garland we quote the following relating to a worthy practitioner in the days when Councillor Pleydell played "high jinks" in his favourite tavern.

In old times some stray agents in Scotland might be found who were not particularly distinguished for professional attainments, and who sometimes could not "draw" a paper as it is termed. One of these worthies was impressed with the idea that his powers were equal to the preparation of a petition for the appointment of a factor. His clerk was summoned, pens, ink, and paper placed before him, and the process of dictation commenced: "Unto the Right Honourable." "Right Honourable," echoed the clerk. "The Lords of Council and Session."—"Session," continued the scribe—"the Petition of Alexander Macdonald, tenant in Skye—Skye—humbly sheweth—sheweth." "Stop, John, read what I've said."—"Yes, sir. 'Unto the Right Honourable the Lords of Council and Session the Petition of Alexander Macdonald, tenant in Skye, humbly sheweth.'"—"Very well, John, very well. Where did you stop?"—"Humbly sheweth—that the petitioner—petitioner"—here a pause for a minute—"that the petitioner. It's down, sir." Here the master got up, walked about the room, scratched his head, took snuff, but in vain; the inspiration had fled with the mysterious word "petitioner." The clerk looked up somewhat amazed that his master had got that length, and at last ventured to suggest that the difficulty might be got over. "How, John?" exclaimed his master. "As you have done the most important part, what would you say, sir, to send the paper to be finished by Mr. M—— with a guinea?"—"The very thing, John, tak' the paper to Mr. M——, and as we've done the maist fickle pairt of the work he's deevilish weel aff wi' a guinea."

We are indebted to the author of that capital collection of Scottish anecdote, Thistledown, for the following story, as illustrating one of the many humorous attempts to get the better of the law, and one in which the lawyer was "hoist with his own petard." A dealer having hired a horse to a lawyer, the latter, either through bad usage or by accident, killed the beast, upon which the hirer insisted upon payment of its value; and if it was not convenient to pay costs, he expressed his willingness to accept a bill. The lawyer offered no objection, but said he must have a long date. The hirer desired him to fix his own time, whereupon the writer drew a promissory note, making it payable at the day of judgment. An action ensued, when in defence, the lawyer asked the judge to look at the bill. Having done so, the judge replied: "The bill is perfectly good, sir; and as this is the day of judgment, I decree that you pay to-morrow."

Joseph Gillon was a well-known Writer to the Signet early in the nineteenth century. Calling on him at his office one day, Sir Walter Scott said, "Why, Joseph, this place is as hot as an oven."—"Well," quoth Gillon, "and isn't it here that I make my bread?"

A celebrated Scottish preacher and pastor was visiting the house of a solicitor who was one of his flock, but had a reputation of indulging in sharp practice. The minister was surprised to meet there two other members of his flock whose relations with the solicitor were not at the time known to be friendly or otherwise. In course of conversation the solicitor, alluding to some disputed point, appealed to the minister: "Doctor, these are members of your flock; may I ask whether you look on them as black or as white sheep?"—"I don't know," answered the minister, "whether they are black or white sheep; but this I know, that if they are long here they are pretty sure to be fleeced."

Apropos of this story is the one of a Scottish countrywoman who applied to a respectable solicitor for advice. After detailing all the circumstances of the case, she was asked if she had stated the facts exactly as they had occurred. "Ou ay, sir," rejoined the applicant; "I thought it best to tell you the plain truth; you can put the lees till't yoursel'."

* * * * *

THE LAWYER'S TOAST

At a dinner of a Scots Law Society, the president called upon an old solicitor present to give as a toast the person whom he considered the best friend of the profession. "Then," said the gentleman very slyly, "I'll give you 'The Man who makes his own will.'"



CHAPTER SEVEN

THE AMERICAN BENCH & BAR

"Going tew law is like skinning a new milch cow for the hide and giving the meat tew the lawyers."

JOSH BILLINGS.

"Oh, sir, you understand a conscience, but not law."

MASSINGER: The Old Law.



CHAPTER SEVEN

THE AMERICAN BENCH & BAR

The Rev. H. R. Haweis has defined "humour as the electric atmosphere, wit as the flash. A situation provides atmospheric humour, and with the culminating point of it comes the flash." This definition is peculiarly applicable to the humour of the Bench and Bar when the situation invariably provides the atmosphere for the wit. Not less so is this the case in American Courts than in British. Before Chief Justice Parsons was raised to the Bench, and when he was the leading lawyer of America, a client wrote, stating a case, requesting his opinion upon it, and enclosing twenty dollars. After the lapse of some time, receiving no answer, he wrote a second letter, informing him of his first communication. Parsons replied that he had received both letters, had examined the case and formed his opinion, but somehow or other "it stuck in his throat." The client understood this hint, sent him one hundred dollars, and received the opinion.



He was engaged in a heavy case which gave rise to many encounters between himself and the opposing counsel, Mr. Sullivan. During Parson's speech Sullivan picked up Parson's large black hat and wrote with a piece of chalk upon it: "This is the hat of a d—d rascal." The lawyers sitting round began to titter, which called attention to the hat, and the inscription soon caught the eye of Parsons, who at once said: "May it please your honour, I crave the protection of the Court, Brother Sullivan has been stealing my hat and writing his own name upon it."

Parsons was considered a strong judge, and somewhat overbearing in his attitude towards counsel. One day he stopped Dexter, an eminent advocate, in the middle of his address to the jury, on the ground that he was urging a point unsupported by any evidence. Dexter hastily observed, "Your honour, did you argue your own cases in the way you require us to do?"—"Certainly not," retorted the judge; "but that was the judge's fault, not mine."

Patrick Henry, "the forest-born Demosthenes," as Lord Byron called him, was defending an army commissary, who, during the distress of the American army in 1781, had seized some bullocks belonging to John Hook, a wealthy Scottish settler. The seizure was not quite legal, but Henry, defending, painted the hardships the patriotic army had to endure. "Where was the man," he said, "who had an American heart in his bosom who would not have thrown open his fields, his barbs, his cellars, the doors of his house, the portals of his breast, to have received with open arms the meanest soldier in that little band of famished patriots? Where is the man? There he stands; and whether the heart of an American beats in his bosom, you gentlemen are to judge." He then painted the surrender of the British troops, their humiliation and dejection, the triumph of the patriot band, the shouts of victory, the cry of "Washington and liberty," as it rang and echoed through the American ranks, and was reverberated from vale to hill, and then to heaven. "But hark! What notes of discord are these which disturb the general joy and silence, the acclamations of victory; they are the notes of John Hook, hoarsely bawling through the American camp—'Beef! beef! beef!'"

* * * * *

It is sometimes imagined that eloquent oratory is everything required of a good advocate, and certainly this idea must have been uppermost in the minds of the young American counsel who figure in the following stories. A Connecticut lawyer had addressed a long and impressive speech to a jury, of which this was his peroration: "And now the shades of night had wrapped the earth in darkness. All nature lay clothed in solemn thought, when the defendant ruffians came rushing like a mighty torrent from the mountains down upon the abodes of peace, broke open the plaintiff's house, separated the weeping mother from the screeching infant, and carried off—my client's rifle, gentlemen of the jury, for which we claim fifteen dollars."

There was good excuse for adopting the "high-falutin" tone in the second instance, that it was the lawyer's first appearance. He was panting for distinction, and determined to convince the Court and jury that he was "born to shine." So he opened: "May it please the Court and gentlemen of the jury—while Europe is bathed in blood, while classic Greece is struggling for her rights and liberties, and trampling the unhallowed altars of the bearded infidels to dust, while the chosen few of degenerate Italy are waving their burnished swords in the sunlight of liberty, while America shines forth the brightest orb in the political sky—I, I, with due diffidence, rise to defend the cause of this humble hog thief."

And this extract from a barrister's address "out West," some fifty years ago, surely could not fail to influence the jury in his client's behalf. "The law expressly declares, gentlemen, in the beautiful language of Shakespeare, that where a doubt of the prisoner exists, it is your duty to fetch him in innocent. If you keep this fact in view, in the case of my client, gentlemen, you will have the honour of making a friend of him and all his relations, and you can allus look upon this occasion and reflect with pleasure that you have done as you would be done by. But if, on the other hand, you disregard the principles of law and bring him in guilty, the silent twitches of conscience will follow you all over every fair cornfield, I reckon, and my injured and down-trodden client will be apt to light on you one of these dark nights as my cat lights on a saucerful of new milk."

* * * * *

In a rural Justice Court in one of the Southern States the defendant in a case was sentenced to serve thirty days in jail. He had known the judge from boyhood, and addressed him as follows: "Bill, old boy, you're gwine to send me ter jail, air you?"—"That's so," replied the judge; "have you got anything to say agin it?"—"Only this, Bill: God help you when I git out."

Daniel Webster was a clever and successful lawyer, who was engaged in many important causes in his day. In a case in one of the Virginian Courts he had for his opponent William Wirt, the biographer of Patrick Henry, a work which was criticised as a brilliant romance. In the progress of the case Webster brought forward a highly respectable witness, whose testimony (unless disproved or impeached) settled the case, and annihilated Wirt's client. After getting through his testimony, Webster informed his opponent, with a significant expression, that he had now closed his evidence, and his witness was at Wirt's service. The counsel for defence rose to cross-examine, but seemed for a moment quite perplexed how to proceed, but quickly assuming a manner expressive of his incredulity as to the facts elicited, and coolly eyeing the witness, said: "Mr. ——, allow me to ask you whether you have ever read a work called Baron Munchausen?" Before the witness had time to answer, Webster rose and said, "I beg your pardon, Mr. Wirt, for the interruption, but there was one question I forgot to ask my witness, and if you will allow me that favour I promise not to interrupt you again." Mr. Wirt in the blandest manner replied, "Yes, most certainly"; when Webster in the most deliberate and solemn manner, said, "Sir, have you ever read Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry?" The effect was so irresistible that even the judge could not control his rigid features. Wirt himself joined in the momentary laugh, and turning to Webster said: "Suppose we submit this case to jury without summing up"; which was assented to, and Mr. Webster's client won the case.

* * * * *

In the year 1785 an Indian murdered a Mr. Evans at Pittsburg. When, after a confinement of several months, his trial was to be brought on, the chiefs of his nation were invited to be present at the proceedings and see how the trial would be conducted, as well as to speak in behalf of the accused, if they chose. These chiefs, however, instead of going as wished for, sent to the civil officers of that place the following laconic answer: "Brethren! you inform us that ——, who murdered one of your men at Pittsburg, is shortly to be tried by the laws of your country, at which trial you request that some of us may be present. Brethren! knowing —— to have been always a very bad man, we do not wish to see him. We therefore advise you to try him by your laws, and to hang him, so that he may never return to us again."