HE HAD TO ATTEND A FUNERAL.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3002, 8 February 1881, Page 4

HE HAD TO ATTEND A FUNERAL.

Old Chief-Justice Bumpus was obstreperous on the bench. His dignity was unassailable —his self-esteem like a triple wall of granite, or gates of brass, through which the familiarity of the common herd could not make its way. In dispensing justice he knew no friendship ; and in dealing out the duties of those who served about him, he would sooner have cut off a finger than show favor to one more than to another. On a certain occasion, when an important case was on the docket, which might run several clays, one of those who had been drawn to serve on the jury asked, very modestly and very politely, to be excused. He gave as a reason for his request that his business was pressing him hard for time. " Should I be called from my business during the two or three days next to come," he said, " the loss to me and to my partners would he more than I can tell. For myself I would not care so much ; but I ought not to bring loss to others." The judge looked at him tremendously ! —a look that might have paralyzed a weaker man. The look was maiestie and awful —a look of pained surprise and of mingled reproof. " Sir! Man ! —Row dare you present personal business in the balance against the demands of the Law? Though your business were to uphold the arching heavens it should not excuse you from performing the solemn duties to which you have been regularly subpoenaed and appointed ! Sir ! —you will remain upon the jury !" Shortly after this —when his honor had recovered his breath, and a look of complacency had crept over his corrugated visage, up to him sidled a pale-faced, cadaverous looking man, with a mournful expression of countenance ; a bend in his back ; and a solemn shade in his garb —and he, also, had come to beg that ho might be excused from serving on the jury. " O ! your excellency! Your honor, I mean !" as he saw the old jurist just upon the point of exploding, " I would not ask this—indeed, I would not," —he carried his handkerchief to his eyes, and put back the rising flood of emotion—" I would not ask it for myself; but a solemn, sacred duty—■ a duty, your honor, which no other calling of earth can transcend. It is the melancholy duty, your august honor, of attending a funeral! Ab me ; Those whom we love are dropping from us—dropping one by one ! and I shall ere long go to join tbe host upon the other side !" The jndge lifted his spectacles and wiped a mote from his eye. "My good man, your feelings do you credit. Under such circumstances I will excuse you. You may go, sir, and attend upon the sad ceremonies that await the stricken mourner." The man went out in a hurry. He was careful to drop a tear of gratitude to the

judge, and then he sidled away with tho Bwiftness of a shadow. " Poor man!" muttered the august court, to itself, after tbe juror had gone; and then, to the clerk : " Mr Clerk, who is that man whom I have just excused from service as juror ? " His name is Digandberry, sir." "What a curious name. What is his business ?" "IHe is an undertaker, sir."