ANECDOTES OF BENCH AND BAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume V, Issue 1343, 6 March 1868, Page 6

ANECDOTES OF BENCH AND BAR.

(From the San Francisco Bulletin.) ' Bench and Bar, or Wit, Humor, Asperities gild Amenities of the Law," is the title ot a very readable volume by L. J. Bigelow, dedicated to Hon. Eoscoe P. Colliding. U. S. Senator, from New York, and published by Harper & Brothers. 'J'he author scorns to have gleaned the field thoroughly. Ho has given all the anecdotes which have become traditional, with many which are new. We have "Anecdotes of the Lord Chancellors of England," anecdotes of celebrated British barristers, anecdotes of the Chief Justice of the United states, anecdotes of the Western Bar and miscellaneous legal epigrams, puns ,and poems. A more charming volume we have not I taken up in many a day. 'Ihe Bar and the ' Bench are famous for their wit, and we have here crystalized within the graceful covers of a duodecimo, the best sayings of the great masters of law during the past two hundred years. The work is attractively gotten up as regards letterpress and binding; but the illustrations of which there are some thirty-three —are in the worst style ol' the house of Harpers—which is saying a good deal. AVc give a few samples of the quality of Mr. Bigelow's pleasant volume below. ANECDOTES OP EUFUS CIIOATE. Rufus Choate and Chief Justice Shaw, of I Massachusetts, often indulged in wordy combats, and wit was generally freely expended by both sides. Choate was once arguing a cause before tho chief justicc (who was one of the homeliest men ever elevated to the bench,) and, to express his revcrcnce for the conceded ability of the judge, said, in yielding to an adverse decision. " In coming into the presence of your honor, I experience the same feelings the liiildoo docs when he bows before his idol. I know that you are ugly, but 1 feci that yDU arc great!" It is said that Choato had a command of language, and his bruin teemed with a wealth of diction trulv marvellous. When Judge Shaw first heard "that there was a fresh edition of AVorccster's Dictionary out, containing 2,500 new words, he exclaimed, "For heaven's sake, don't let Clioate get hold of it." Choate, in an important assault and battery case at sea, had Dick Barton, chief mate of the clipper ship Challenge, on the stand, and badgered hin\ so for about an hour that Dick ' got'his salt water up, and hauled by the wind > to bring the keen Boston lawyer under his i batteries.

At the beginning of his testimony Dick said that the night, was as "dark as the devil, and raining lilcc seven l>clls." Suddenly Mr. Choate asked him, " Was there a moon that night ?" " Yes sir." '' Ah, yes ! a moon —" " Yes, a full moon." " Did you see it ?" " Not a mite." " Then how do you know that there was a moon." " The Nautical Almanac said so, and I believe that sooner than any lawyer in this world." " What was the principal luminary that night, sir?" " Binnacle lamp aboard the Challenge." " Ah ! You are growing sharp, Mr. Darton." " What in blazes have you been grinding me this hour for—to make me dull ?" " He civil, sir. And now tell me what latitude and longitude you crossed the equator in ?" " Sho'—you're joking." " No sir, I am in earnest, and I desire you to answer me." " I shan't." " Ah ! you refuse, do you." " Yes—l enn't." " Indeed ! You are the chief mate of a clipper shin, and are unable to answer so simple a question ?" " Yes, 'tis the simplest question I ever had asked me. Why, I thought every fool of a lawyer knew that there' ain't no latitude at the equator." That shot floored Rufus. As Mr. Choate was cross-questioning a witness, he asked him what profession he followed for n livelihood. The witness replied, " I am a candle of the Lord—a minister of the Gospel." " Of what denomination ?" asked the counsellor.

" A Baptist," replied tho witness. " Then," said Mr. Choate, " you are a dipt, but I trust not a wick-ed candle." In 1804 Mr. Choate was engaged in a divorce suit ou the part of the husband to procure a bill of separation from liis wife. The principal witness for his client was a woman named Abigail Bell. On the cross-examination, Mr. Sumner, the opposing counsel, asked her, " Are you married ?" " iNo." '• Have you children?" "No." " Have you a child ?" " Then there was a distressing pause. At last the monosyllable " Yes" was fully uttered by the witness. Instantly the counsel ceased the cross-exumination. Of course, her evidence, where there was a conflict of testimony, was immensely damaged in the eyes of the jury by this fact confessed by the maiden mother. Choate did not ask auy question in reply or explanation, and she stepped down from the wit-ness-stand a blackened woman. When he came, in the course of his argument to reply to that part ofhis case which rested on her evidence, lie took her character in hand. The court-room hushed the moment he said, " Abigail Hell's evidence, gentlemen, is before you." liaising himself up wiih great firmness, he went on, " I solemnly assert there is not the dream of the shadow of a shade of doubt or of suspicion on that evidence, or on her character." Everybody looked stupefied with astonishment at these words. Solemnly he proceeded. " What though in an ungarded moment, she may have trusted too far to the young man to whom she had pledged her untried affections, to whom she was to have been wedded on the next Lord's day, and who wax suddenly struck dead at her feet by a stroke of lightning out of the heavens !" 'ilien he made another of his tremendous pauses snuffing the air, and his strange, dark eyes, lowered over the jury, while they took in this romantic and extraordinary explanation. The whole court-room felt its force, and lighted up as if a feeling of relief had been experienced by every one present. There was a buzz, a stir, a universal sensation and then again Choate rolled along under full headway. . He won his case, and this trajyo story, to save the character of the fair witness, was the offspring of his fertile fancy. The use of the expression from Sophocles, " the dream of the shadow of a shade," in the last anecdote of Choate, shows that he could be extravagant'when necessary. In a speech at the beginning of the Mexican Wnr, Mr. Chpate opposed an invasion of the Mexican territory, advocating the policy of keeping the United States army within the line of boundary claimed by our government. In answer to this, it was urged that such, a policy would prolong the war;

that the Mexicans did not agree to this boundary, and that they would be sending armies continually into the fields to harrass our troops. 7.'liis Mr. Choate energetically denied. "No, sir," said he ; " draw aline with the sword where the United States are reiolved it should be drawn, and no Mexican army will dare come within a, thousand miles of that line for a thousand years \" In maintaining tho worthlessness of certain testimony offered upon the other side, in a case in which he was engaged, Mr. Choate said, " It would be as difficult to find a grain of truth in that testimony as to find a drop of water spilled i in the Desert of Sahara in the times of the Cmtades !"

Speaking in excuse of a man who had bortowed largely in the prosecution of an enterprise that failed of success, and thus cruelly disappointed his creditors, Mr. Coate said, " Suddenly, as the lightning blazes in the summer sky, all Jiis vernal hopes of promise perished in autumnal rigor." In a spcech in defence of the judiciary in o Constitutional Convention, Choate was inquired of directly by a suspicious member as to whether he had not heard particular acts of the judges commented on very unfavorably. He proceeded to answer very slowly and solemnly, saying,

. " Sir, I have known and loved many men, many women " — (here there was a subdued titter in the house; he raised himself up erect, his eyes flashed with a sublime ardor as he repeated in a most solemn tone) —" ay, many and the noblest of earth and skies, but I never knew one, I never lieard. of one, if conspicuous enough to attract any considerable observation, whom the breath of calumny or sarcasm always wholly spared. Did the learned gentleman who interrogates me ever know one ? *'' Bo thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, Thou shalt not escape calumny.' 11 It is related that Mr. Choate wrote three hands ; one which he could read, and his clerk could not; one which liis clerk could read, buthimself could not; and a third which nobody could read. Some of lxis friends used to tell him jestingly that he had better get the appointment of minister to China, where he could employ his leisure in lettering tea-chests with his pen. CUHRAN'S FIBST BBIEF AND FIRST WITTICISMS. Not long after his first brief, a circumstance occurred which, elicited the first scintillation of Curran's genius and rendered him a terror alike to the bench and the bar. Lord ifobertson, one of the presiding judges, was very unpopular both as a man and a jurist. He had undertaken to edit an edition of illaekstone, but being afraid of the critics, he simply gave it the title of" Blackstone's Commentaries, by u Member of the Irish Bar." Soon aftertlie work appeared Curran was pleading a ease before his lordship, when the judge interrupted him and said, " Gentlemen of the jury, the learned counsel has mistaken the law of this case. The law is so and so." To which Curran tartly replied, " If his lordship says so, the etiquette of the court demands that I submit, though neither the statute nor common law of the country should sanction his lordship's opinion ; it is my duty and privilege, too, to inform you, gentlemen of the jury, that I have never seen the law so interpreted in any book in my library." Lord .Robertson sneeringly replied, " Perhaps your library is rather small, Mr. Curran." " I admit," said Curran, " my library is small; but I have always found it more profitable to read good books than to publish bad ones — books which their authors and editors are ashamed to own." " Sir," said the judge, you are forgetting the dignity of the judicial character." To this Curran promptly replied, " Speaking of the dignity, your lordship reminds mo of a book I have read—l refer to ' Tristram Shandy ' —in which, if your lordship has read it, you will remember that the Irish 1 buffer Eoclie, on engaging in a squabble, lent his coat to a by-stander, and after the fight was ended he discovered that he had got a good 1 beating and lost his coat into the bargain ; your lordship can apply the illustration." " Sir," said the judge very petulantly, " if you say another word I'll commit you." " If you do, my lord," replied Curran coolly, ' " both you and I shall have the pleasure of reflecting that I am not the worst thing your lordBhip has committed."