THE LIGHTER SIDE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 777, 25 September 1929, Page 18

THE LIGHTER SIDE

SMART LEGAL QUIPS HUMOUR OF THE LAW Smart quips of Bench and Bar that serve to freshen up the dryness of the Law Courts, were presented by Professor R. M. Algie, addressing the Victoria League Literary Circle last evening. The speaker related how, after listening patiently for six hours to a young barrister’s argument, Sir Samuel Griffith, Chief Justice of Australia, observed: “Mr. So-and-So, this Court has been listening to you since 10 o’clock. It is now four and so far as I know we are not any wiser.’’ Far from being nonplussed, the ingenious barrister made reply: “May it please your Honour, I have no doubt the Court is not any wiser, it is the proud boast of the Constitution, that the Court cannot be any wiser; but it could no doubt be better informed, your Honour.” Once the terror of young barristers, Lord Ellenborougb, “put one across” a young counsel pleading in impassioned tones for his client thus: “The story of my client,” he dramatically declaimed, “is written in the pages of the glorious book of nature.” “The book of nature, Mr. So-and-So? At precisely what page?” asked the judge pointedly. A New Zealand anecdote had reference to a legal banquet at which the late Mr. Thomas Cotter delivered an oration upon the delinquent habits of the modern young man. Mr. Cotter deplored the prevailing custom of leaving work at 11.30 on a Saturday in order to have morning tea and make an early start for the golf course and described liow, when he was young, he wrote up his diary on a Saturday afternoon, had a hurried dinner and worked at his office in the evening, making up his costs. The speech was so moving that Sir John Findlay, who rose later to speak, was constrained to remark: “Mr. Cotter has made plain something I had not known before; he has made plain the true significance of that literary title, ‘A Cottar’s Saturday Night.’ ” Professor Algie described his own experience on visiting a Rotorua Maori village, where a discussion had been in progress some days. A sharp debate - between one of the gathering and an impressive figure in , the centre of the house prompted the professor to ask what they were doing. “They have a court ease in Auckland in a few days, and they are just rehearsing,” was his friend’s retort.