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court and presented an affidavit of prejudice in a case marked for trial on that day's calendar. The Judge, who dislikes affidavits of this nature more than anything else in the world, held it up and said to the rest of the Bar assembled in the room, as well as to the young lawyer : " Well, here is an other of these affidavits; don't you know, sir, (looking directly at the young man) that I do not know either of the parties to this action." The young man looked downcast for a moment, and then looking suddenly up as though a happy thought had struck him, said : " No, your Honor, but they know you." The court and bar were considerably startled, but the matter ended in a universal shout.
"The gentleman," said the court, with dignity, "will please confine himself to the case before the jury and not permit himself to indulge in invidious comparisons." It almost took the attorney's breath away, but he managed to pull himself together and finish in pretty fair shape. In a bill for pulling down the Old Newgate in Dublin and rebuilding it on the same spot, it was enacted " that the prisoners should remain in the old jail till the new one was completed." NOTES. In the days of John Eliot, a court was estab lished at Nonantum, over which presided Waban, an Indian justice of the peace. By him justice was speedily and impartially administered. His sagacious and sententious judgment in a case between some drunken Indians would do no discredit to a much higher civilization than that at Nonantum : " Tie um all up," said he, " and whip um plaintiff, and whip um 'fendant, and whip um witness."
A well known barrister relates the following story with great gusto. Some time ago he had under cross examination a youth from the country who rejoiced in the name of Samson, and whose replies were provocative of much laughter in the court. "And so," questioned the barrister, "you wish the Court to believe that you are a peacefully dis posed and inoffensive kind of person?" "Yes." "And that you have no desire to follow in the steps of your illustrious namesake and smite the Philistines?" "No, I've not," answered the witness. "And if I had the desire I ain't got the power at pres ent." "Then you think you would be unable to cope successfully with a thousand enemies and utterly rout them with the jawbone of an ass?" "Well," answered the ruffled Samson, " I might have a try when you have done with the weapon."
The new Recorder of the City of New York, on the first day of his beginning his term, was reported as having reproved a young lawyer for indulging in extraneous pleasantry. He might be reminded of Lord Chief Justice Erie — in office in England thirty years ago — who said to a coun sel who apologized for a sally of wit that disturbed the court-room with laughter : " The Court is very much obliged to any learned gentleman who beguiles the tedium of a legal argument with a little honest hilarity."
Before a Western judge a lawyer was pleading a case and was making a regular red-fire-and-slowcurtain speech, which stirred the jury to its profoundest depths. In the course of his peroration he said :— "And, gentleman of the jury, as I stand at this bar to-«day in behalf of a prisoner whose health is such that at any moment he may be called before a greater Judge than the judge of this court, I —" The judge on the bench rapped sharply on the desk, and the lawyer stopped suddenly and looked at him questioningly.
Lord Chief Baron Pollock, when age began to invade his body, was wont to have a nap pretty regularly about the middle of the sitting. His waking was often comical : when he would start and seizing his pen say to the counsel, " What was your last citation?" and some of his friends thought he ought to resign. One of these ex pressly waited on Sir Frederic Pollock and hinted at resignation. " Oh! you think me too old, eh?" he said, " come waltz with me;" and then seizing his interlocutor by the waist began capering with him about the private chambers. Next he put
