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The Green Bag.

the jurymen, and nearly the whole audience were smoking. To show the inconsistency of their eti quette, I mention that while all were thus smoking, in order to protect myself from a draught of air, as I sat by a window, I put on my travelling-cap. Had I been in a more dignified court in the States, I should not have done so; but in this assemblage, blue with the smoke of tobacco, I forgot my self, and In a few minutes was brought to grief by being touched lightly on the shoulder by one in authority, who also had a pipe in his mouth, who said, —

"Your pardon, sir; but it is not customary in our nation to wear one's hat in the pres ence of the judge." Notwithstanding this reproof, I listened to the arguments of the lawyers with pleas ure They were well posted in regard to their laws, and handled their respective sides with shrewdness. The Cherokee lawyers displayed a marked logical penetration into the meaning and intent of the laws, and a weak place in a witness's testimony was quickly detected; and he was most unmerci fully handled when the lawyer summed up the case.

THE LAW OF THE LAND. V. A MATHEMATICAL PROBLEM. By Wm. Arch. McClean. IT might be supposed that at all times and in all places the law would be mathe matically correct, and mathematics legally correct; that law would have endless needs for the science of figures. It is so. Fig ures do not lie, is an old saying that is only falling into disrepute in these later days, when they are manipulated by large corpora tions as to their financial condition to mean almost anything but the truth. In far the greater number of cases the decision of the law means an expression in figures with the dollar mark prefixed. Notwithstanding this close affinity, there is a point of difference between mathematics and the law about a certain set of figures that cannot be com promised in any way; and it is about the simplest of figures and sums. Mathematics says that twice one are two, adding one and one makes two, subtracting one from one leaves nothing (a zero), and that the half of one is one half. The law, in considering the problem in hand, says that twice one are one, adding one to one

makes one, subtracting one from one leaves one, and that the half of one is one There can be no reconciliation between law and mathematics about it, though it must be confessed that the mathematical horn of the dilemma seems uncontrovertible, and the logic of the law unassailable. As may be surmised, it is as to the mar riage relation between man and woman. Joining the two makes them one in the eyes of the law in many things. The twice one are only one. From this legal one subtract one by death, and one remains. The half of the one in law is not a half, but a whole. For many years the twice one are one made that one in, the eyes of the law a male one. The woman's legal status was sub merged into that of the man, her property became his. During the present century the rights of the wife have grown, and been enlarged from time to time, until in many States the rights of the married woman are one in law and in fact, and the married man's rights are one; yet the twice

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