The following act was passed some years ago by the Pennsylvania Assembly : "The State House yard shall be surrounded by a brick wall, and remain an open enclosure forever."

The solicitor of the mountain district of North Carolina, a few years back, was J. M. Gudger, a man of quick and sparkling wit, of which many incidents are current, among them this : On one occasion five colored men of unusual blackness of tint were on trial for a riot or some similar offence. When the case was called, the judge, noticing the group, inquired, " What have you now. Mr. Solicitor?" Instantly came the reply, "A flush of spades, your honor." It may be mentioned that there, as elsewhere, it was not unusual for judge, solicitor, and counsel to beguile the tedium of the circuit with a harmless game of cards. The inquiry, not unusual over the social table, received an answer more witty than expected in the court-room. A good story is being told about a judge of the Massachusetts Superior Court. The judge has a habit, when making a charge to the jury, or during the course of any lengthy remarks in court, of allowing his voice to drop so that his words can with difficulty be caught. While sentencing a prisoner at a term over which he presided at Law rence, he fell into the habit, and a man in the court-room shouted, " Speak louder, your honor! speak up! " " Send that man out, Mr. Officer!" said the judge; and a friend of the individual, knowing the penalty which might be inflicted upon him for such a contemptuous proceeding, advised him to get out of town at once, lest the judge's rightful wrath should induce him to punish him more severely. So the man hurried out, and the court went on. " Call the next case'," said the judge, when he had finished with the prisoner in whose case the interruption occurred. " Terence O'Flynn" (or whatever the next man's name was), called the clerk; but no O'Flynn arose. The crier called him; but there was no answer, and the officers of the court began to look about. It was discovered that O'Flynn had been in court that morning, and his absence could not be accounted for, until some one spoke up and said, " May it please the court, but Terence O'Flynn was the man you just sent out!"

NOTES. At the June Term, 1863, of Bennington, Vt., County Court, Michael Costello and Michael Purcell were jointly indicted for the murder of Thomas Barrie. The facts shown upon trial were that these three persons, on their way home at night from the Dorset quarries, became engaged in a drunken row, in which Barrie was stabbed and killed. The evidence was quite uncertain as to how or by which one of the three the quarrel was begun, or which one of the two did the stabbing; and there was no evidence of concert between Costello and Purcell. At this term Costello pro cured a continuance of the trial, as to himself, until the next term; but Purcell, being in readi ness, demanded a present trial, which was granted him; and he was tried and acquitted. At the next December term Costello was tried, and he was also acquitted. They were defended by different counsel, each urging the danger of convicting an innocent man, and that his client was truly or probably the innocent man. Each verdict was clearly right, and yet the result of the two trials was the acquittal of a murderer; but which was he? The case seems to have been a proper one for separate trials, since the parties were placed in a position of hostility, — each forced to maintain his own innocence by casting the crime upon his fellow. If they had been tried jointly, the result must have been substantially the same, — either an acquittal of both or an irrecon cilable disagreement. Thus, though in one view the result of these trials was a failure of justice, in another it was a vindication of the considerate justice of the law. Among the many curious customs still existent in England is that of the crown supplying venison twice a year to London's lord mayor, sheriffs, recorder, chamberlain, town clerk, common ser geant, and remembrancer, each of whom receives his proper quota of deer. The early charters granted to the citizens secured to them their sup ply of game; and the present custom is the relic of the bygone age. — Ex. An artist employed in decorating the properties of an old Romanist church in Belgium, being refused payment of a bill which he had sent in unitemized, thereupon furnished the following bill of particulars : —