LEGAL ACUTENESS.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 61, 30 November 1878, Page 3

LEGAL ACUTENESS.

We remember an audacious trick in which a living ex-judge, then Sergeant ]i., onco obtained hj verdict for £IOOO on no evidence or materials at all. He iuformed the jury that the case was a .short undefended one, an action on a bond for £1(100 given by Messrs. Cubitt, the great builders, for the completion of some bouses within a certain time, and that, there being some mistake ill the specification, the houses bail never been commenced, and the bond was therefore forfeited. The learned counsel then called for bis ■witness to prove the execution of the l«md, but again addressing the jury, said that the bond (holdingup a paper) carried interest at £."> per cent., which they would not press for, though it amounted to £250, but would go simply for the £IOOO. This unexpected speech surprised and aroused the very excitable Sergeant 0., who defended, and who immediately started up and said that " he feared they could nut contestjthe bond, it was a mere questi m of interest, ami "s that had been given up they would tnK verdict by consent for toe Xiuuu without any proof of the bond." This was don< : the two Serjeants mi t i-i tl "Brother, your.client nicely . ' How so . uu -,; i Sergeant R, "I'm not accustomed to sell my client, though I sometime sell counnel on the o|ip . ' why didn't V' Hgo in :'•, i, ■.i iresl P You m* I read v ",r ' end it. ■ lurluindf " (inly a ■ . . ' I The verdiel ha 1 beeu taken bj i I a] I tut be aisturl i 1.

I Ani pin e 'if legal ingenuity of argu incut 11 ■1 ' the Cambridge Assizes: few \. :us ...ni-. A gentleman wasseated fi in his library ilia evening, in a lonely - 1 country Ji»um>, when hom ing a noise outi side in liis garden, he summoned his ser- ■ vant ami proceeded after the supposed i robbers. In the garden they encountered . a man pocketing potatoes, called on him to surrender, lie refused: a scuffle ensued, and in the struggle the servant was mortally wounded by the thief, who was . subsequently captured and tried for the alleged murder. The ease appeared certalniy one of manslaughter or murder. , | The facts were undisputed, hut the inge- , nious chain of argument adopted to obtain an aciplittal was the following. These potatoes which the prisoner was . pocketing were not proved to have been dug up before ho took them, and, as a spade was near him, and the adjoining earth freshly turned, the presumption was they were in the earth, or attached to ■ the freehold, when the prisoner came upon them. If this were so, they were not the subject of larcency, and prisoner , was not committing a felony in taking them but only a civil trespass. If so, the master and servant had no right to arrest him, and what ho did was {done in self-defence, and was justifiable homicide. <)u this ground he was acquitted, hut it certainly appeared remarkable that the ipiestiou iu the case of hanging or of acquittal sbo'ddj depend on the question of a pound or two of potatoes having been dug up or not by a particular person. Had the gardener dug them up legally, the prisoner would have been executed; as he dug them himself he was acquit. -1 Wo ought, however, to add that ‘lt has been very considerably iili'TO amended since the trial of tin.* e ferred to. Many of our readers wil the strange line of defence wii i -a present learned Lord Chief iLr-n iv il\ took in the celebrated Tawei mm t e «■;; - tried at Aylesbury. The a victim ; been poisoned with prussic acid, ami the facts pointed to the prisoner as li lting administered t. .Sir h'itzoy Kelly, however, elicited from some of the witnesses that the deceased woman was very fond of apples, from others that she had had a present of a bushel of apples, and from the doctors called that the pips of apples contained this acid. Stringing these three facts together, lie gravely urged the jury to believe that the woman had eaten so many apples that she had poisoned herself with the prussic acid of tli" pips I The jury preferred to find the prisoner guilty, and he was duly hanged, ids cam.-.! being honoured with the sobriquet of • Apple-pip Kelly” for a long time atlci wards. Tin- late Mr. .Justice llyk-s had a most shrewd and ingenious manner of adapting stern and unyielding facts to the most clever theory of science. \\ c recollect the conviction before him at Kxclcr of a lady who was perpetually stealing trifling articles from the shops she patronised. Being “ culled upon” for judgment her counsel argued that she was the victim of Kleptomania. “ Kleptomania?” asked the judge, in the most innocent manner; “ what is kleptomania ?” “ A disease, my lord,” said her counsel, “the subject of which is uncontrollably addicted to larceny,” “ Oh, 1 sec,” said the judge ; “and a disease, sir, which the judges are sent on circuit, as physicians, to cure. My prescription on the present occasion is twelve months’ imprisonment with hard lab. i ir !”—Leisure J four.