Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/386

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The

Green

Published Monthly at £4.00 per Annum.

Bag.

Single Numbers 50 Cents.

Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, Thus. Tileston Baldwin, 1038 Exchange Building, Boston, Mass. The Editor will be glad to receive contributions of articles of moderate length upon subjects of in terest to the profession; also anything in the way of legal antiquities or curiosities, facctia, anecdotes, etc. NOTES. "Guilty, or not guilty? " asked the court. "I don't know that I exactly understood the information," replied the bank president. " If it charges me with misappropriation of funds, guilty; if it says larceny, certainly not!" There is a Kentucky circuit judge who is a strong believer in his own infallibility. Not long ago, a bank official was convicted in his court of a misappropriation of funds, after a trial in which many technical points had been raised. He was remanded for sentence until the end of the criminal calendar should have been reached. On the night before judgment the prisoner sud denly expired in his cell. The next morning the court officer informed his honor of the occurence. "You will never have to sentence Smith," said the officer. " He has gone to a Higher Court." "I bet," replied the presiding judge, "that the case will be affirmed." The late Henry C. Parsons of Williamsport, Pa., was one of the ablest practitioners in the State and quite ready at any time to take a tech nical advantage of the opposing counsel, if opportunity offered. Upon one occasion he was called into the neighboring county of Tioga, to assist in the trial of a case in the Common Pleas, then presided over by Judge Williams, now of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Upon his arrival at the county seat, and after a consultation with his client, he found that they were totally unprepared for trial and yet had no legal grounds upon which to base a motion for a continuance. In this dilemma it occurred to him to examine the venire summoning the jurors,

and to his great delight he found that it had been improperly returned. Early the next morn ing, therefore, he appeared in court and made a motion to quash the venire, because it had not been legally returned. After examination, the Court, with evident disgust, was compelled to grant the motion. Afterwards, in relating the occurrence to a friend. Parsons' client said, "I tell you, that man Parsons has got a hull slop-bucket full of brains. Why, man, when he made his pint, he just squashed the hull court." Henry W. Paine, on being familiarly accosted on the street by a man whose face he did not re call, turned to him and said, with his usual dig nity : " Sir, I do not recognize you." "Why," replied the man, " you tried a case for me more than twenty years ago." "Still, sir, I do not recollect." The man looked at him earnestly : " Pardon me, sir, I took you for Mr. D." Paine drew himself up to his full height. "Sir," he said, "I hope the devil won't make that mistake bye and bye." Judge David Davis, said Judge J. Otis Hum phrey, in an address at the annual meeting of the Illinois State Bar Association, " was known far beyond the limits of his circuit for the care which he invariably took of trust estates. On one occasion a bill was presented to him in the McLean Circuit Court for a sale of land by a guardian for reinvestment. Judge Davis lis tened to it until he caught the substance of it, and he said : ' You cannot do that, Sam; all the money my father left me was stolen by ex actly that kind of a proceeding.' Again, over in Vermilion Circuit, a similar bill was pre sented for sale and reinvestment of a ward's es tate, and, as I remember the Vermilion case, it was based upon the reason that the improve ments on the real estate were deteriorating. He listened to the reading of the bill, and