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The Green Bag.

universal probity than the grocers. The plaintiff whom I unworthily represent, is a grocer." The solicitor, sitting below, whis pered, "Wine merchant." On M'Donagh went, expatiating in all possible ways on the virtues of grocerdom, and ringing the changes on his client being a grocer. Now and then the solicitor interjected a correction "Wine merchant." At length M'Donagh grew im patient of the solicitor's interruptions, and lowering his head, he pulled the solicitor to him and hissed in his ear, "Silence, sir! Damn you, silence! Don't you see nine of them are grocers?" During the Parnell Commission the great hall was filled one morning with batches of Irish peasants. Detached from any group was a big woman, with a red homespun skirt, the cloak, white " kerchey," and black-rib boned "quilled" cap, which indicates "a poor lone widdy woman of the west." She had lost her party, and looked bewildered. As some excuse for intruding an acquaintance, with a mind to help her, I said, with as much of the natural "rowl of the tongue" as remains to one in exile, " Faith ma'am, this same is a grand hall." "Bedad your honor, it is, and," with a pious glance upwards, "a real illigant place to say one's beads in if it wasn't for the law." In a great trial Mr. Butt was setting forth a most recondite view of the law, which few lawyers could follow or master without the most serious attention, certainly not the court of common pleas, where Monahan, no greater lawyer, presided. The most able of the judges under him was Mr. Justice Keogh, who several times interrupted the great Q. C., and, with some appearance of design, inter posed remarks which showed his inattention or want of appreciation of the intricate point which Butt was urging. At length Butt's patience gave way. He swung himself to wards the Bench with that imperious gesture which was so well known (though often feigned), and in a tremendous voice and burst of indignation growled, " Be Kent un

mannerly when Lear is mad? " The auditors shuddered. The counsel resumed his line of argument, and, without any further interrup tion, the case went on and Butt triumphed. Keogh, in his decision, took pains to ground his dictum on the law of the great man who had rebuked him. When, for the first time, Lord Morris went as a judge on the Connaught circuit, at which he had practiced before his election to the bench, he gave many specimens of his native quality of wit. At one assize town the judges arrived late, and after being sworn, the grand jury sent down a true bill in a very simple case, which might fill up the judges spare time for " the heel "of the even ing which remained. It was a case of the "abduction" of a small farmer's daughter by a shopkeeper who could not arrange the matter of the dowry of the sweetheart to the satisfaction of her relations. The accused had met the maid near his shop and kept her, half resisting, half consenting, in his prem ises, and with an elderly female relative, so that the offense was only technically an ab duction. But the girl's relatives were furi ous, the unwitting magistrates foolish, and the crown officials anxious to make fees. "Charlie O'Malley," without whose speech for the defense a Mayo peasant would scarce ly believe himself not guilty, made a wonder ful speech, in which he flattered, toadied and bullied, in a farrago ranging from the Newtonian theory to the rights of man and colleens. Finally he complimented in the choicest terms a box of frieze-coated jurors, "The most intelligent, highminded, naturally gifted men it had ever been the honor and privilege of counsel to address." Then came Judge Morris's turn. He ridiculed the magi strates, touched up the relatives, and rated the crown officials with short, sharp words, and then wound up in Galway Doric : " You have seen my learned friend Mr. O'Malley's amazing performance. Dismiss it from your minds, and don'tgohome to yourhonestwives with peacocks' feathers in your hats to pro-

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