"Well," said the judge, "I'm very glad to hear that very glad indeed. I shall get rid of your case; I shall dismiss it, because I cannot sit in a suit where I am related to one of the parties."

This was a little more than the party had bargained for, and he began at once to paddle off. After a few inquiries as to the judge's ancestry, and their residence, etc.,

"I think, judge," said he, "I was mistaken. We are of quite different families, and not at all related."

"Ah!" says the judge, "is that so ?" "Oh yes," said he, "there is no mistake about it."

"Well," replied the judge, in a very emphatic tone, "I'm glad to learn that very glad. I should hate awfully to be related to a man mean enough to attempt to influence a court as you have!"

A LEGAL WAG.

JUDSON T. MILLS, of South Carolina, was judge of a district court in Northern Texas, fond of a joke, but being very decided in his discharge of duty. Thomas Fannin Smith was a practicing lawyer at the bar, and having shamefully misstated the law in his address to the jury, turned to the court, and asked the judge to charge the jury accordingly. The judge was indignant, and replied:

"Does the counsel take the court to be a fool?"

Smith was not abashed by the reproof, but instantly responded:

"I trust your honor will not insist on an answer to that question, as I might, in answering it truly, be considered guilty of contempt of court."

"Fine the counsel ten dollars, Mr. Clerk," said the judge.

Smith immediately paid the money, and remarked, "it was ten dollars more than the court could show."

"Fine the counsel fifty dollars," said the judge.

The fine was entered by the clerk, and Smith, not being able to respond in that sum, sat down. The next morning, on the opening of court, Smith rose, and with much deference of manner began:

"May it please your honor, the clerk took that little joke of yours yesterday

about the fifty dollars as serious, as I perceive from the reading of the minutes.. Will your honor be pleased to inform him of his error, and have it erased?"

The coolness of the request and the implied apology pleased the judge, and he remitted the fine.

THE BARRISTER AND THE WITNESS.

THERE is a point beyond which human forbearance cannot go, and the most even of tempers will become roused at times.

At an assize held during the past year, both judge and counsel had a deal of trouble to make the timid witnesses upon a trial speak sufficiently loud to be heard by the jury; and it is possible that the temper of the counsel may thereby have been turned from the even tenor of its way.

After this gentleman had gone through the various stages of bar pleading, and had coaxed, threatened, and even bullied witnesses, there was called into the box a young ostler, who appeared to be simplicity personified.

Now, sir," said the counsel, in a tone that would at any other time have been denounced as vulgarly loud, "I hope we shall have no difficulty in making you speak out."

"I hope not, zur," was shouted, or rather bellowed out by the witness, in tones which almost shook the building, and would certainly have alarmed any timid or nervous lady.

"How dare you speak in that way, sir?" said the counsel

"Please, zur, I can't speak any louder," said the astonished witness, attempting to speak louder than before, evidently think ing the fault to be in his speaking too softly.

"Pray, have you been drinking this morning?" shouted the counsel, who had now thoroughly lost the last remnant of his temper.

"Yes, zur," was the reply. And what have you been drinking?" Corfee, zur."

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"And what did you have in your coffee, sir?" shouted the exasperated counsel.

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A spune, zur?" innocently bawled the witness, in his highest key, amidst the roars of the whole court-excepting only the now thoroughly wild counsel, who flung down his brief and rushed out of court.

METEMPSYCHOSIS.

THE gifted Sargent S. Prentiss once gave a sumptuous dinner to some friends at a hotel in Vicksburg. Early in the evening a stranger entered the room by mistake. Prentiss courteously invited him to join the party. Before long the strange guest began boasting of how much he had drunk during the day-a cocktail here, a smasher there, a julep in this place, a sling in that, and so on, apparently without end. At length Prentiss interrupted him:

"Sir," said he, "do you believe in the doctrine of metempsychosis?"

"I don't know," was the reply, "and I don't see that it has anything to do with what we were talking about.'

"It has," rejoined Prentiss, "muchmuch every way. I have firm faith in that doctrine. I believe that in the next life every man will be transformed into the thing for which he has best qualified himself in this. In that life, sir, you will become a corner groggery."

A SAUCY LAWYER.

JAMES T. BROWN, of Greensburg, Ind., a smart and saucy lawyer, was once employed to defend a case before the Circuit Court of his state. The judge was not very learned in technicalities, knew but little Latin, and much less Greek. The jury were taken from the country, ordinary farmers. The plaintiff's counsel had opened. Brown rose and spoke two hours in the highest possible style, soaring aloft, repeating Latin and translating Greek, using all the technical terms he could bring to the end of his tongue. The jury sat with their mouths open, the judge looked on with amazement, and the lawyers laughed aloud. Brown closed; the case was submitted to the jury without one word of reply. Verdict in the box against Brown; motion for a new trial. In the morning Brown rose and bowed to

the court:

"May it please your honor, I humbly rise this morning to move for a new trial; not on my own account; I richly deserve the verdict, but on behalf of my client, who is an innocent party in this matter. On yesterday I gave wings to my imagi

RIDICULE VERSUS ELOQUENCE.

THE celebrated legal orator, Elisha Williams, of Columbia County, was a most graceful speaker, and his voice, particularly in its pathetic tones, was melody itself. All who remember Ogden Hoffman's voice (he was called "the Flute" by his fellow-members of the bar of New York), can appreciate the mellifluous of Mr. Williams. His power over organ a jury was astonishing. He swayed as with the wand of an enchanter, and it was very seldom he failed to secure a verdict for his client; but on one occasion he did, in such a perfectly ridiculous manner, that a crowded court and grave judges on the bench were convulsed with laughter at the burlesque of the result. He was completely discomfited by an ignorant, impudent, unlettered pettifogger who knew no law, but somehow or other had obtained the credit of shrewdness, and the reputation among his farmer neighbors of being hard to beat.

The case was an act of murder. Mr. Williams of course, on the ground of his power over the jury, was for the defence. His peroration was exceedingly touching and beautiful.

"Gentlemen of the jury," said he, “If you can find this unhappy prisoner at the bar guilty of the crime with which he is charged, after the adverse and irrefragable arguments which I have laid before you, pronounce your fatal verdict; send him to lie in chains upon the dungeon floor, waiting the death which he is to receive at your hands; then go to the bosom of

your families, go lay your heads on your pillows, and sleep if you can!"

The effect of the closing words of the great legal orator was at first thrilling; but by and by the pettifogger, who had volunteered to follow the prosecuting attorney, arose and said:

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Gentlemen of the jury, I should despair, after the weeping speech which has been made to you by Mr. Williams, of saying any thing to do away with its eloquence. I never heerd Mr. Williams speak that piece of his'n better than what he spoke it now. Onct I heerd him speak it in a case of stealin', down to Schaghticoke; then he spoke it ag'in in a case of rape, up to Esopus; and the last time I heerd it before just now, was when them niggurs was tried-and convicted, too, they was for robbin' Van Pelt's henhouse, over beyond Kingston. But I never knowed him to speak it so eloquent and affectin' as what he spoke it jes now. This was a poser. The jury looked at one another, whispered together, and our pettifogger saw at once that he had got them. He stopped at once, closing with a single remark:" If you can't see, gentlemen of the jury, that this speech don't answer all cases, then there's no use of my saying any thing more."

And there wasn't; he made his and they awarded him their verdict.

CHIEF BARON POLLOCK.

case,

A CAPITAL story is told of the ex-Chief Baron Pollock. Some one who wished the baron to resign waited on him, and hinted at his resignation, and suggested it for his own sake, entirely with a view to the prolongation of his valued life, and so forth. The old man rose, and said with his grim, dry gravity, "Will you dance with me?" The guest stood aghast as the Lord Chief Baron, who prides himself particularly upon his legs, began to caper about with a certain youth-like vivacity. Seeing his visitor standing surprised, he capered up to him and said, "Well, if you won't dance with me, will you box with me?" And with that he squared up to him; and half in jest, half in earnest, fairly boxed him out of the room. The old Chief Baron had no more visitors anxiously inquiring after his health, and courteously

suggesting retirement. The Lord Chief Baron was prone to the expression of strong general views, which he conveyed in a manner eminently characteristic, with an idiomatic vigor and originality almost amusing. "If," said he on one occasion, "every man were to take advantage of every occasion to have the law' of his neighbor, life would not be long enough for the litigation which would result. All flesh and blood would be turned into plaintiffs and defendants."

ELDON'S FIRST JUDGMENT.

"THE first cause I ever decided," said

Eldon, "was an apple-pie cause; Í must tell you of it, Mary. I was, you know, a senior fellow at the University College, and two of the undergraduates came to complain to me that the cook had sent them an apple-pie that could not be eaten. So I said I would hear both sides. I summoned the cook to make his defence; who said that he always paid the utmost attention to the provisions of the college, that he never had anything unfit for the table, and that there was then a remarkably fine fillet of veal in the kitchen. Now, here we were at fault; for I could

not understand what a fillet of veal in the kitchen had to do with an apple-pie in the hall. So, in order that I might come to a right understanding of the merits of the case, I ordered the pie itself to be brought before me. Then came an easy decision; for the messenger returned, and informed me that the other undergraduates had taken advantage of the absence of the two complainants, and amongst them had eaten the whole of the apple-pie; so you know it was impossible for me to decide that that was not eatable which was actually eaten.

I have often wished in after

life that all the causes were apple-pie causes; fine easy work it would have

been."

A FERTILE MIND. -The following story is related by Mr. Jefferson, concerning the first Continental Congress: "Delegate Harrison, of Virginia, desiring a stimulant, presented himself and friend at a certain place where supplies were furnished Congress, and ordered two