pending equity case — which lines, although heretofore given in legal literature, may in this connection again see light: — "Mr. Leach has made a speech Which is witty, neat and strong. On the other part brother Hart Has been heavy, dull and long. Brother Parker made the case darker Which was dark enough without. Then on his close the court uprose And Eldon muttered — ' Doubt."' No doubt many a judge, wearied by the prolixity of an arguing counsel, and who has already extracted the kernel of the nut that counsel is cracking with repeated blows, has whiled away the moments by pencilling some bon mot or epigram and handed it to associates for their enjoyment. Perhaps they of the Bench are often thus recreating when counsel, seeing busy pens moving above him, fondly fancies that the Judges are taking copious notes of his argument and citations. New Orleans lawyers narrate of their once Chief-Justice George Eustis — sire of the American Ambassador to France — that his great amusement during tedious arguments was to indite pleasantries on his official note book. They also narrate that Judah P. Benjamin, when at the New Orleans Bar — long before he became Federal Senator, then Attorney-General of the Confederacy and subsequently a great O. C. in England — was noted for his exchange of repartees with Judge Eustis. A capital impromptu satire on Chief Baron Pollock — grandfather of the great O. C. who has recently been a guest of the Harvard Law School alumni — is ascribed to George Augustus Sala, constructed while acting as reporter of a cause celebre for the " London Telegraph." At the time the Chief Baron had become — to quote a Biblical phrase — "well stricken in years " and was very deaf; so that he would often misunderstand and confuse matters in his rulings. The im promptu lines may serve as an instance of
what is lost through absence of court re porters, to chronicle smart forensic sayings. The preservation of the line is due to bar rister Percy Fitzgerald — who, however, is better known as author and playwright than as lawyer. It seems that in observing the mistakes of the Chief Baron through his diminution of hearing, Fitzgerald, in an aside, had re minded Sala of the sketch in the Pickwick Papers by their mutual friend, Charles Dickens, of deaf Justice Stareleigh when presiding at the Trial of Bardell v. Pickwick. That fictional Judge, when witness Nathaniel Winkle of the club was called to the box, had after many vain attempts to hear the name called, finally noted it as Daniel. Thus the Sala impromptu : The plaintiff, John Doe, is as deaf as an adder, More deaf the defendant, one Roe, and what's sadder, Much deafer than both is the judge, enthroned high This intricate action of trover to try! Doe claimed many drachmas for rent left unpaid. Deaf Roe in defence with great emphasis said : "It is always by nightthatmy corn I do grind." Quoth the judge looking down, " Why not be of one mind? After all she's your mother; why can't you agree To keep her between you and let the law be?" These irrelevant misunderstandings among the deaf triune were indeed trenchantly hit off. Chief Justice Xavier Martin, of Louisiana — first reporter of its court, and to remove whom, because he was an octogenarian, purblind and deaf, and would not resign, the State Constitution was changed in 1846, — was continually blundering through his deafness. When the eloquent Sergeant S. Prentiss, who had come down from Vicksburg, in Mississippi, to argue a case before the Martin Court, the senile Chief Justice whispered to an associate on the bench, "New face; don't know him. What's his name?" This being given, all the con versation perfectly audible in the court-room that was crowded by auditors attracted by the fame of one of the most matchless
