BAR JOKES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXII, Issue 72, 22 September 1906, Page 10

BAR JOKES.

Two attempts have been made by a contemporary to trace to its source i weil-known Law Courts joke. The first credited Sir Frank Loekwood withgthe jest; the second made the then Mr". Henry Hawkins its father. As a fact, the mot seems to have originated witty the first Lord Chelmsforil, then Frederick Thcsiger. Sir Cresswell -Oesswell was trying a case in which the name of a vessel was frequently introduced. When mentioned by Serjeant. Ghannell, wh.o was deficient In store of aspirates,, the vessel was the Ellen ; when alluded to bjr Tbesiger fche was the Helen. " Stop!" said Gres6well presently ; " I have got on my notes the Ellen and the Helen; which Is it?" Tn his blandest tone, Thesiger replied, " Oh, my lud, the vessel was christened the Helen, but , she lost her ' h in the chops of the Channell.'f The joke will be remembered against the victim long after other records of him are forgotten. Which makes ifc worth while to note that the only education ho ever received was at a poor private school, but that he raised himself to the Bench by industry Which would be tho death of most men. If Sir Frank Lockwood'6 name must bo dissociated from the Channell joke, it is bound up with another as funny, msettiorablc fife the lhst joke made in tho old Chancery Court } memorable, too, from tho fact that it cropped up on Lockwood's first brief. He had received three guineas for the brief aud one for the . eorisulfcriion to appear for the liquidator in a caro in wllich counsel were fairly numerous. When Loekwood rose, "What brings you "here?" asked Lord Roniilly in surprise, and meaning, "Whj need l/listen to you?" Lockwobd looked puzzled for a moment, and the Mnstei of tho Rolls went on testily, " What do you come hero for?" The" answer, says Mr. Birrell, was immediate, unexpected, and accompanied, as it was, by a dramatic glanco at the outside of his brief, as if to refresh his memory, triumphant, "Three and one, my lord!"— St. James's Budget. ■

A \Voman who lives in an inland town, and knows nothing about the sea, had occasion once lo take a three days' passago by water. Sho reaohed her journoy'S end extremely fafcigubd. To a friend who rctntirked it she replied : ■— "Yosj I'm tifed to death. I don't know if I shall caro to travel by sea again i I road the card in my cabin about how to put the preserver on, and 1 thought I understood it ; but 1 suppose I didn't. Somehow I couldn't go to sleep with the thing on." "Visit the full penalty of the law upon tho guilty, regardless of person or position. 1 ' This otfern instruction has been telegraphed to Berlin from the Baltic by the Kaiser in connection with a scandal in the Colonial Army administration, which has shaken Germany from Poland to Alsace. The arrest of Major Fischer, chief of the clothing department of the Gehnan Colonial Army, for accepting bribes, hns been declared to bo only thq opening chapter ill a series of sensational revelations which may end in unearthing a German "Panama." Tho name of General yon Podbielski, tho Prussian Minister of Agriculture, crept into tho scandal a few weeks ago, when it became known that ho was a largo partner in thj clothing supply-firm of Tippelskirch and Co., which it is alleged, bribed Major Fischer. Tho German Colonial admihistratidn hau been seething with scandal for more than a year, but heretofore Wrongdoing hits beeh confined to the civil departments. Major Fischer's arrest took place after his denunciation to his superiors by his wife and cousin. The specific charges against him are that he Was Accustomed during the past two years to accept loans of £100 to £150 from Tippelskirch and Company. These "courtesies" totalled neatly £5000 in one year. Major Fischer maintained intimate relations with Hcrr Tippelekirch, who supplied him gratis With tho use of an expensive motor-car. If proVod nuilty, Major Fischer may bo i sentenced to fivo years' hard labour iv a [ penitentiary*