TERRIER’S LAW DIGEST

Evening Star, Issue 20255, 16 August 1929, Page 12

TERRIER’S LAW DIGEST

MEAL OF LEGAL REPORTS NO ILL-EFFECTS NOTICED, How often when we were very young were we not told that to read, marki learn, and inwardly digest our studies was the only way to success? It has been left to a member of the canine world to show mere man how casv it is to comply with at least the 'last part of that noble sentiment (writes the _ Dublin correspondent of the ‘ Daily Express ’). A beautiful Kerry blue terrier, the inseparable companion of Mr Justice Hanna, is now trotting round Dublin full of English law. The clever animal may almost bo said to be bursting with information of abstruse legal problems that hard-worked law studeiits take years to assimilate. This is how the phenomenon came to pass: It was a lovely day. The sun was high in, the heavens, and the green fiends called to all self-respecting dogs to sally forth in search of rabbits. Outside all was peace Inside tho wellstocked library of Mr Justice Hanna all was decidedly not peace. The Kerry blue was locked in far away from the delights of the chase. Something had to be done about it. The Kerry blue sat up with a start. A gleam came into his eye. One of the enormous monthly numbers of the Law Reports. Jay on a shelf asking for trouble. It got if. The dog leaped on it, tore it down, worried it, trampled on it, bit it, and swallowed pages of if whole with amazing energy. Law meant nothing to this dog. He became in a few moments master of the subject. He was full of it. Mr Justice Hanna, .more in sorrow than in anger, wrote to ihe editor ot this tattered work for another copy, explaining that his dog had devoured the judgments of the. Chancery, King’s Bench, and probate judges, but was still alive and amazingly well. He added that ho had, apparently, not been able to face the judgments of the House of Lords and Privy Council, Even a Kerry blue has his limitations. Back came this reply; “ Dear Mr Justice Hanna, I. regret the accident to your Lordship’s June part of the Law Reports, and-am glad your dog has illustrated to members _of the profession how easily the solid matter contained in tho Law ' Reports can bo digested and assimilated without disaster,”

Now the enterprising and law-fed terrier walks abroad in Dublin with an expression of superiority on its face that is said to be goading tbo less erudite members of his tribe to murderoils