Law and Laughter Part 10

"Bully" Egan had a great muscular figure, as may be guessed from the story of the duel with Curran. To his bulk he added a stentorian voice, which he freely used in Nisi Prius practice to browbeat opposing counsel and witnesses, and through which he acquired his _sobriquet_. On one occasion his opponent was a dark-visaged barrister who had made out a good case for his client. Egan, in the course of an eloquent address, begged the jury not to be carried away by the "dark oblivion of a brow."--"What do you mean by using such balderdash?" said a friend. "It may be balderdash," replied Egan, "but depend upon it, it will do very well for that jury." On another occasion he concluded a vituperative address by describing the defendant as "a most naufrageous ruffian."--"What sort of a ruffian is that?" whispered his junior. "I have no idea," responded Egan, "but I think _it sounds well_."

H. D. Grady was a strong supporter, in the Irish Parliament, of the Union of Great Britain and Ireland, although he represented a const.i.tuency strongly opposed to it; and he did not conceal the fact that the Government had made it worth his while to support them. "What!"

exclaimed one of his const.i.tuents who remonstrated with him; "do you mean to sell your country?"--"Thank G.o.d," cried this patriot, "I have a country to sell."

For his Court work this anti-Nationalist barrister had what he called his "jury-eye." When he wanted a jury to note a particular point he kept winking his right eye at them. Entering the Court one day looking very depressed, a sympathetic friend asked if he was quite well, adding, "You are not so lively as usual."--"How can I be," replied Grady, "my jury-eye is out of order."

He was examining a foreign sailor at Cork a.s.sizes. "You are a Swede, I believe?"--"No, I am not."--"What are you then?"--"I am a Dane." Grady turned to the jury, "Gentlemen, you hear the equivocating scoundrel. _Go down, sir!_"

Judge Boyd who, according to O'Connell, was guilty of sipping his wine through a peculiarly made tube from a metal inkstand, to which we have already referred, one day presided at a trial where a witness was charged with being intoxicated at the time he was speaking about. Mr.

Harry Grady laboured hard to show that the man had been sober. Judge Boyd at once interposed and said: "Come now, my good man, it is a very important consideration; tell the Court truly, were you drunk or were you sober upon that occasion?"--"Oh, quite sober, my Lord." Grady added, with a significant look at the _inkstand_, "As sober as a judge!"

Mr. Beth.e.l.l, a barrister at the time of the Union of Ireland and Great Britain, like many of his brethren, published a pamphlet on that much-vexed subject. Mr. Lysaght, meeting him, said: "Beth.e.l.l, you never told me you had published a pamphlet on the Union. The one I saw contained some of the best things I have ever seen in any of these publications."--"I am proud you think so," rejoined the other eagerly.

"Pray what was the thing that pleased you so much?"--"Well," replied Lysaght, "as I pa.s.sed a pastry-cook's shop this morning, I saw a girl come out with three hot mince-pies wrapped up in one of your productions!"

"Pleasant Ned Lysaght," as his familiar friends called him, meeting a Dublin banker one day offered himself as an a.s.sistant if there was a vacancy in the bank's staff. "You, my dear Lysaght," said the banker; "what position could you fill?"--"Two," was the reply. "If you made me _cashier_ for one day, I'll become _runner_ the next."

And it was Lysaght who made a neat pun on his host's name at a dinner party during the Munster Circuit. The gentleman, named Flatly, was in the habit of inviting members of the Bar to his house when the Court was held in Limerick. One evening the conversation turned upon matrimony, and surprise was expressed that their host still remained a bachelor. He confessed that he never had had the courage to propose to a young lady.

"Depend upon it," said Lysaght, "if you ask any girl _boldly_ she will not refuse you, _Flatly_."

O'Flanagan, author of _The Lord Chancellors of Ireland_, writes of Holmes, an Irish barrister: "He made us laugh very much one day in the Queen's Bench. I was waiting for some case in which I was counsel, when the crier called, 'Pluck and Diggers,' and in came James Scott, Q.C., very red and heated, and, throwing his bag on the table within the bar, he said, 'My lords, I beg to a.s.sure your lordships I feel so exhausted I am quite unable to argue this case. I have been speaking for three hours in the Court of Exchequer, and I am quite tired; and pray excuse me, my lords, I must get some refreshment.' The Chief Justice bowed, and said, 'Certainly, Mr. Scott.' So that gentleman left the Court. 'Mr. Holmes, you are in this case,' said the Chief Justice; 'we'll be happy to hear you.'--'Really, my lord, I am very tired too,' said Mr. Holmes.

'Surely,' said the Chief Justice, 'you have not been speaking for three hours in the Court of Exchequer? What has tired you?'--'Listening to Mr.

Scott,' was Holmes' sarcastic reply."

Although rivals in their profession, C. K. Bushe had a great admiration for Plunket's abilities, and would not listen to any disparagement of them. One day while Plunket was speaking at the Bar a friend said to Bushe, "Well, if it was not for the eloquence, I'd as soon listen to ----," who was a very prosy speaker. "No doubt," replied Bushe, "just as the Connaught man said, ''Pon my conscience if it was not for the malt and the hops, I'd as soon drink ditch water as porter.'"

There is an impromptu of Bushe's upon two political agitators of the day who had declined an appeal to arms, one on account of his wife, the other from the affection in which he held his daughter:

"Two heroes of Erin, abhorrent of slaughter, Improved on the Hebrew command-- One honoured his wife, and the other his daughter, That 'their' days might be long in 'the land.'"

A young barrister once tried to raise a laugh at the Mess dinner at the expense of "Jerry Keller," a barrister who was prominent in social circles of Dublin, and whose cousin, a wine merchant, held the contract for supplying wine to the Mess cellar. "I have noticed," said the junior, "that the claret bottles are growing smaller and smaller at each a.s.sizes since your cousin became our wine merchant."--"Whist!" replied Jerry; "don't you be talking of what you know nothing about. It's quite natural the bottles should be growing smaller, because we all know _they shrink in the washing_."

An ingenious expedient was devised to save a prisoner charged with robbery in the Criminal Court at Dublin. The princ.i.p.al thing that appeared in evidence against him was a confession, alleged to have been made by him at the police office. The doc.u.ment, purporting to contain this self-criminating acknowledgment, was produced by the officer, and the following pa.s.sage was read from it:

"Mangan said he never robbed but twice Said it was Crawford."

This, it will be observed, has no mark of the writer having any notion of punctuation, but the meaning attached to it was, that

"Mangan said he never robbed but twice.

_Said it was Crawford._"

Mr. O'Gorman, the counsel for the prisoner, begged to look at the paper.

He perused it, and rather astonished the peace officer by a.s.serting, that so far from its proving the man's guilt, it clearly established his innocence. "This," said the learned gentleman, "is the fair and obvious reading of the sentence:

"Mangan said he never robbed; _But twice said it was Crawford_."

This interpretation had its effect on the jury, and the man was acquitted.

There were two barristers at the Irish Bar who formed a singular contrast in their stature--Ninian Mahaffy was as much above the middle size as Mr. Collis was below it. When Lord Redsdale was Lord Chancellor of Ireland these two gentlemen chanced to be retained in the same cause a short time after his lordship's elevation, and before he was personally acquainted with the Irish Bar. Mr. Collis was opening the motion, when the Lord Chancellor observed, "Mr. Collis, when a barrister addresses the Court, he must stand."--"I am standing on the bench, my lord," said Collis. "I beg a thousand pardons," said his lordship, somewhat confused. "Sit down, Mr. Mahaffy."--"I am sitting, my lord,"

was the reply to the confounded Chancellor.

A barrister who was present on this occasion made it the subject of the following epigram:

"Mahaffy and Collis, ill-paired in a case, Representatives true of the rattling size ace; To the heights of the law, though I hope you will rise, You will never be judges I'm sure of a(s)size."

A very able barrister, named Collins, had the reputation of occasionally involving his adversary in a legal net, and, by his superior subtlety, gaining his cause. On appearing in Court in a case with the eminent barrister, Mr. Pigot, Q.C., there arose a question as to who should be leader, Mr. Collins being the senior in standing at the Bar, Mr. Pigot being one of the Queen's Counsel. "I yield," said Mr. Collins; "my friend holds the honours."--"Faith, if he does, Stephen," observed Mr.

Herrick, "'tis you have all the tricks."

[Ill.u.s.tration: DANIEL O'CONNELL, "THE LIBERATOR."]

It is told by one of O'Connell's biographers that he never prepared his addresses to judges or juries--he trusted to the inspiration of the moment. He had at command humour and pathos, invective and argument; he was quick-witted and astonishingly ready in repartee, and he brought all these into play, as he found them serviceable in influencing the bench or the jury-box.

Lord Manners, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, stopped several of the many counsels in a Chancery suit by saying he had made up his mind. He, in fact, lost his temper as each in succession rose, and he declined them in turn. At last O'Connell, one of the unheard counsel, began in his deepest and most emphatic tone: "Well then, my lord, since your lordship refuses to hear my learned friend, you will be pleased to hear ME"; and then he plunged into the case, without waiting for any expression, a.s.sent or dissent, or allowing any interruption. On he went, discussing and distinguishing, and commenting and quoting, till he secured the attention of, and evidently was making an impression on, the unwilling judge. Every few minutes O'Connell would say: "Now, my lord, my learned young friend beside me, had your lordship heard him, would have informed your lordship in a more impressive and lucid manner than I can hope to do," etcetera, until he finished a masterly address. The Lord Chancellor next morning gave judgment in favour of O'Connell's client.

He was engaged in a will case, the allegation being that the will was a forgery. The subscribing witness swore that the will had been signed by the deceased "while life was in him"--that being an expression derived from the Irish language, which peasants who have long ceased to speak Irish still retain. The evidence was strong in favour of the will, when O'Connell was struck by the persistency of the man, who always repeated the same words, "The life was in him." O'Connell asked: "On the virtue of your oath, was he alive?"--"By the virtue of my oath, the life was in him."--"Now I call upon you in the presence of your Maker, who will one day pa.s.s sentence on you for this evidence, I solemnly ask--and answer me at your peril--was there not a live fly in the dead man's mouth when his hand was placed on the will?" The witness was taken aback at this question; he trembled, turned pale, and faltered out an abject confession that the counsellor was right; a fly had been introduced into the mouth of the dead man, to allow the witness to swear that "life was in him."

O'Connell was defending John Connor on a charge of murder. The most incriminating evidence was the finding of the murderer's hat, left behind on the road. The all-important question was as to the ident.i.ty of the hat as that of the accused man. A constable was prepared to swear to it. "You found this hat?" said O'Connell.

"Yes."--"You examined it?"--"Yes."--"You know it to be the prisoner's property?"--"Yes."--"When you picked it up you saw it was damaged?"--"Yes."--"And looking inside you saw the prisoner's name, J-O-H-N C-O-N-N-O-R?" (here he spelt out the name slowly).

"Yes," was the answer. "There is no name inside at all, my lord,"

said O'Connell, and the prisoner was saved.

Explaining to a judge his absence from the Civil Court at the time a case was heard, in which he should have appeared as counsel, O'Connell said he could not leave a client in the Criminal Court until the verdict was given. "What was it?" inquired the judge. "Acquitted," responded O'Connell. "Then you have got off a wretch who is not fit to live," said the judge. O'Connell, knowing his lordship to be a very religious man, at once replied: "I am sure you will agree with me that a man whom you regard as not fit to _live_ would be still more _unfit_ to die."

There was a young barrister--a contemporary of O'Connell--named Parsons, who had a good deal of humour, and who hated the whole tribe of attorneys. Perhaps they had not treated him very well, but his prejudice against them was very constant and conspicuous. One day, in the Hall of the Four Courts, an attorney came up to him to beg a subscription towards burying a brother attorney who had died in distressed circ.u.mstances. Parsons took out a one-pound note and tendered it. "Oh, Mr. Parsons," said the applicant, "I do not want so much--I only ask a shilling from each contributor. I have limited myself to that, and I cannot really take more."--"Oh, take it, take it," said Parsons; "for G.o.d's sake, my good sir, take the pound, and while you are at it bury twenty of them."

There is a terseness in the following which seems to be inimitable.

Lord Norbury was travelling with Parsons; they pa.s.sed a gibbet.

"Parsons," said Norbury, with a chuckle, "where would _you_ be now if every one had his due?"--"Alone in my carriage," replied Parsons.

Here is a young Irishman's first Bar-speech. "Your lordships perceive that we stand here as our grandmothers' administrators _de bonis non_; and really, my lords, it does strike me that it would be a monstrous thing to say that a party can now come in, in the very teeth of an Act of Parliament, and actually turn us round, under colour of hanging us up, on the foot of a contract made behind our backs."

A learned Serjeant MacMahon was noted for his confusion of language in his efforts to be sublime. He cared less for the sense than the sound.