Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/232

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Editorial Department.

115. The matter may be looked at from another point of view. It is possible to regard the man's re quest as an offer of himself to the young lady for the purpose of being utilized as a partner for a dance. The question then arises whether there is sufficient consideration moving from her to him to raise the implied warranty that he is reasonably fit for the purpose for which he is required. Rut even if this point should be decided against the man, he can go to the jury on the question whether she did not volun tarily take the risk of his fitness, not relying on any implied warranty at all. These questions were very fully gone into in the somewhat analogous case of the bailment of a cab-horse. Fowler v. Lock, L.R. 7 CP. 272; 9 CP. 751, n.; 10 CP. 90. We are inclined to think that the man should succeed on the question of fact, and that the young lady ought not to be allowed to rely on any implied warranty of fit ness. It is to be hoped, however, that the Newarkcase is the last case of the kind we shall hear of, and it will be recognized in future, as it has been always in the past, that the only obligation imposed on a man in a ball-room is that he should behave as a gentleman. If anyone fails in this respect, there have always been found very effectual means of dealing with him outside the law courts.— Australian Law Times. In a Cattaraugus (N.Y.) tar-and-feathers case the other day the plaintiffs lawyer described his client's experience as follows : " And thereupon some persons then and there assembled applied a quantity of coal-tar to the person of the said Blowers, and after applying the said tar to various parts of his person . . . afterward decorated, beautified and adorned the person of the said Blowers with a large quantity of hen's feathers, worth to the value of Si, and after, and in other ways, and by other Christian and legitimate methods, remonstrating with the said Blowers for his evil practices, invited and urged the said Blowers to depart from the town of Humphrey, which said Blowers then and there proceeded to do with great speed, scattering hens' feathers and dropping coal-tar and profanity at every jump."

In one of the Black-Letter Year Books it ap pears that someone had been so unkind as to call a preacher a fool, with a good theological prefix to the fool. The preacher brought suit for slander and the defendant justified, that what he said was not slander but gospel truth, and he

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showed that the words spoken could not hurt the clergyman, " for that it was a maxim of the com mon law " that " a parson might be a good parson and still be a fool." The court so held, but said that had the words been spoken of a lawyer or doctor it would have been otherwise, or, as the reporter of this case puts it in his early Norman English : " Parce que on peut estre bon parson et grand fou; d'un attorney aliter."

One of the learned justices of the Maine Su preme Court, than whom no man better knows how to appreciate a really amusing thing, was holding court at Ellsworth and, according to honored custom, called in a local clergyman to open the session with a supplication to heaven. This worthy gentleman came, and after a chat with the justice proceeded to address the giver of all good and perfect things thus : " Almighty God; we beseech thee to bestow upon the pre siding justice the wisdom which he so greatly needs! " The learned recipient of the blessing never heard the rest of that remarkable prayer, which, in truth, was cut short by disorder in the court, strongly resembling half-smothered laughter from the direction of the clerk's desk. It is said that the same judge once opened court after a prayer which began this way : " Oh, Lord, we pray thee to overrule the decisions of the court to thine own honor and glory."

When Judge Parsons was a practising lawyer he was once employed to plead two cases in court which were precisely alike, but in one he was engaged for the plaintiff, in the other for the defendant, says the " Lewiston (Me.) Journal." It happened that both cases were tried the same day. He spoke for half an hour to the first jury; the case was given to the jurors, and they had re tired. When he appeared before the second jury he made use of very different arguments from those employed by him before, of which the court took notice, reminding him that he seemed to have changed his tune, and repeated to him what he had said a few minutes before. Mr. Parsons fixed his keen eye upon the judge and replied, "May it piease your honor, I might have been wrong half an hour ago, but now I know I am right." He proceeded, and when the juries re