Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 02.pdf/56

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Published Monthly, at $3.00 per annum.

BagSingle numbers, 35 cents.

Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, Horace W. Fuller, i 5^ Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. The Editor will be glad to receive contributions of articles of moderate length upon subjects of interest to the profession; also anything in the way of legal antiquities or curiosities, facetia, anecdotes, etc.

making a most attractive-looking volume. Those sending parts to be bound will prepay the expressage on the same. A correspondent writes from Denver, Col., as follows : —

THE GREEN BAQ. "CENTERING, as it does with this number, upon its second year, the " Green Bag " con gratulates itself that it has safely passed that criti cal period so often fatal to new literary ventures. For the mortality among the infant journals of to-day is almost as great, proportionately, as among the human race. Having escaped, how ever, all the dangers incidental to infancy, the Magazine now stands firmly upon its feet, with all the strength and vigor of early manhood, and possessed of a firm determination to hold the position it has already attained. When started one year ago, it was felt that there was not only a field for just such a magazine, but that it would fill a long-felt want among the profession. A year's experience has demonstrated the correctness of this view; and our efforts at be ing at the same time " useless but entertaining" have met with the most hearty commendation from our legal friends in every State and Territory in the Union, as well as England, Ireland, Scot land, Canada, Germany, Australia, India, New Zealand, the Hawaiian Islands, Japan, and we might almost say the whole civilized world. Thus encouraged in our undertaking, we propose to keep on in the path that we have chosen, and shall continue to be " useless " (from the technical case-law point of view) and we trust more and more " entertaining." The Editor's Green Bag is filled with a host of most interesting papers, which will be drawn forth from month to month for the delectation of our readers.

We will bind Vol. I. of the " Green Bag," for such subscribers as may desire, for $1.50. The binding we furnish is a handsome half morocco, 6

1

Anent the admirable picture and sketch, in No vember's " Green Bag," of that genuine man and wonderful lawyer Jerry Mason, I have heard — what well might be true, but is it? — this tradition : that when pitted against Webster in jury-trials, and when the great expounder had exhausted his thunderous arguments and declamation in the when-my-eyesshall-be- turned -for-the-last-time-to-behold-the-sun-inheaven style, Mason's habit was to hoist one of his big feet up into a chair before the jury, and with elbow on knee and with the air of the veriest rustic begin : " Gentlemen, I ain't eloquent like my friend Webster; but jest let me state a few p'ints to you in reply to his fine speech," — and so forth. After some such exordium he would go on and go on, it might be for hours, in the plainest, simplest talk about the evidence in the case, with arms akimbo, and forefinger beating emphasis on the palm of his left hand, — his only gesture. But such clear, convincing logic, such adaptation to the men tal habits of his listeners! The Ancient Mariner held not his auditor with so firm a grip and spell. According to Webster's own admission, he feared an encounter with Mason more than w'th any other member of the New England Bar. Quare : Is not Mason's style of discourse far above what is com monly called oratory, and is it not far more difficult to attain? From Holton, Penn., comes a complaint against the profession : — Editor of the " Green Bag" : Our counsel has been disputing my wishes for a year or more, to have a defect in our title corrected which comes from a deed recorded in 1842. reading "Benjamin " instead of " Bernard " for the name of the vendor. I settled him by quoting what our witty lawyer Reardon said. Coming into court and seeing three attorneys engaged in a case, he said, in a stage-whisper, "Three members of the bar