PASTOR SPURGEON AND MR JUSTICE LUSH.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7376, 31 January 1902, Page 2

PASTOR SPURGEON AND MR JUSTICE LUSH.

Pastor Spurgeon was dining one night at the house of Mr Justice Lush, who was an intimate friend of his, and there were also present several other Judges. After dinner the Pastor remarked, with an air of apparent seriousness, that he had a point of law which he should like to submit to the eminent legal dignitaries before him. There was, ho said, a man who had been lying at Stockwell for a fortnight, and nobody would bury him; his relations would not make arrangements for his interment, and neither the police nor the parish authorities could get him buried. The legal dignitaries, after a long discussion on the law applicable to such a state of affairs, and after quoting various Acts of Parliament, arrived at the conclusion that if the relatives persistently refused to bury the man, the power lay with the local authorities, which they designated. The learned gentlemen were considerably taken aback when Mr Spurgeon quietly remarked, "There was one little item I ought to have mentioned. The man is not dead yet J" However, the law quickly reasserted itself. Said Mr Justice Lush, " Well, as you seem to be well up in legal matters, perhaps you will tell me whether a man ought to be allowed to marry his widow's sister ?" "Oh, yes," replied the Pastor, not seeing the not that had been spread for him, and imagining the question had been " Ought a man to be allowed to marry his deceased wife's sister ?" 1 " Then," replied the Judge, '• We will cry quits, for even your friend in Stockwell could not marry his widow's sister."