The Editor's Bag rabbit and that he had said, "You had better make it up for the sake of peace." (Loud laughter.) That was hard on the magistrate.
AN IOWA JUDGE A lawyer of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, sends us these interesting stories of an Iowa judge for readers of the Green Bag. To the Editor of the Green Bag:— The late Judge Caswell, for fifty years a well-known lawyer and judge throughout Iowa, was as cutting in retort as he was powerful and shrewd as a trial lawyer. The following are a few of the gems which fell from his lips during the latter years of his life, while he presided over the district courts of our state. A blustering attorney was trying to keep his client from the gallows and wept before the jury, and after a windy argument won his case. When the jury came in with a ver dict of "not guilty" the client was surrounded by a weeping wife and relatives, who were all making quite a stir in the court room, when the Judge, as well as the defendant's attorney, walked into the side room to get away from the commotion. The Judge turned to the lawyer and said, "Why don't you con tinue weeping with the rest of your crowd?" The attorney, realizing the pointed remark, turned to the Judge and said, "No, my pay is stopped." During a long-winded trial about the value of certain fanning mills which had been turned on to a foolish speculator by fraudulent pro moters, the evidence showed that the fanning mills were worthless, at least for the purposes for which they were purchased, and there was more or less evidence tending to show up the fraud. The Judge, stepping down from the bench, said to the attorneys as the jury was filing out for recess, "I have always heard that a fanning mill never amounted to much after the chickens roosted on it; now I know it." During a trial where the plaintiff was get ting the worst of it, and the attorney being really ashamed of his case walked up to the Court saying, "It looks a little dark for our side, and I really don't know how to get out of it," the Judge stoically remarked, "A case is never so bad in my Court but I will let plaintiff dismiss if he feels like it." A receiver had been appointed by the Court and was getting discharged, and there was a fight over the value of his services. He had considerable evidence showing the value of the services, when the Court asked him his name, age and what he had been doing before he was appointed receiver, and about what he was worth in money at the time he took this receivership. These ques tions were answered, and finally the Judge says, "You are trying to get more money out of this receivership in six months than you have made in all your life; I don't think
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that a receivership should be a sinecure, and I will allow you $5.00 a day and will not pay you more working days than there really are in a year, and I believe from your past record that this is paying you $4.00 a day more than you ever made before in your life." The Judge in his younger days was more or less of a criminal lawyer and defended a horse thief. Some time after that the horse thief came around to pay the Judge for his services, which the Judge always admitted was not very much considering the client he had to defend, and he asked the client after he received his pay whether he really was guilty of stealing that horse. The freed horse thief replied, "Well, you see here, Obe, I always thought I was guilty of stealing that dare horse until I heard your eloquent plea, and since then I have had me doubts about it." B. L. WICK. USELESS BUT ENTERTAINING Mr. Roosevelt is no longer President of the United States, and a certain Emperor is said not to be sorry. In his opinion the fellow attracted too much attention.— Punch. The class was given "Oliver Cromwell" as the subject for a short essay, and one of the efforts contained the following sentence: "Oliver Cromwell had an iron will, an un sightly wart, and a large red nose; but under neath were deep religious feelings."—The Bar. In reward of faithful political service an ambitious saloon keeper was appointed police magistrate. "What's the charge ag'in' this man?" he inquired when the first case was called. "Drunk, yer honor," said the policeman. The newly made magistrate frowned upon the trembling defendant. "Guilty, or not guilty?" he demanded. "Sure, sir," faltered the accused, "I never drink a drop." "Have a cigar, then," urged his honor per suasively, as he absently polished the top of the judicial desk with his pocket handker chief.— Everybody's. A North Carolina lawyer says that when Judge Buxton of that state made his first appearance at the bar as a young lawyer, he was given charge by the state's solicitor, of the prosecution of a man charged with some misdemeanor. It soon appeared that there was no evidence against the man, but Buxton did his best, and was astonished when the jury brought in a verdict of "guilty." After the trial one of the jurors tapped the young attorney on the shoulder. "Buxton," said he, "we didn't think the feller was guilty, but at the same time didn't like to discourage a young lawyer by acquitting him." —Law Student's Helper.
