San Andreas independent., 1857-08-01

FLiRTArIoN.-No recent humorous event has
more excited our cynical neighbor, the retir-
ed highwayman, than certain passages in re-
cent plea of the eminent orator and lawyer, Mr.
Choatc. of Boston.
The titles of sundry law-bookS are not unfa-
miliar, even to our moderate legal intelligence.
There is Chitty on something, and Coke upon
somebody, and somebody else upon something
else; but the treasury of legal lore is now en-
rched with Choate upon Irritation.
Gould this theory be put into the form of
oook, is there any difficulty in deciding which
OF all his books would be the law-students vade
aecumF Could it be reduced to practice, is there
any doubt what department of practice would
be selected by the ambitious legal aspirant?
The Choate theory of filtration imports that
thete Is delicious dropping, an exhilerating
balancing, tempting treading along the very
edges OF offense wetting, so to say, of the
least little tip of the toe of propriety in the
waters OF SIM which is not naughtiness nor
crime, but from which the bewildered neophyte
may return faithful STILL but self-reeuked, to
the inmost bosom of love and constanev.
Richard and Robin, for instance, are two
pretty men; but then Mrs. Richard and Mrs
Robin are two pretty women Mr. Richard
meets Mrs. Robin, and the male Robin likewise
encounters the female Richard. Mrs. Robin
leans upon Mr.. Richards arm, sighs, walks
slowly, sips coffee at his expense, drives with
him to the country, receives passionate protes-
tations from him, sighs again, endures his en-
bracing arm around her waist, languishes, sups
at his expense. does it many times, endures it
often, and returning always to the marital bo-
som of Mr. Robin, is guiltless. Guiltless Yes,
of petty larceny, or of hamstringing horse,
but gu:ltless?
NO. says the eloquent Mr.. Choate, "not
guiltless my beloved fellow citizens, but guilty,
guilty of Irritation in the first degree"
Society clearly owes the learned advocate q
service of plate. All Crinolne should rally to
do him homage. Yet as the debt is peculiarly
a woman's debt, let it be the duty of every wo-
man to discharge it in her degree. Now there
some debts which it is sweeter to discharge
than to incur, and this is one of them for,
whenever chance shall open the way, is it not
womanly duty to walk it
We recommend, then, as an Easy Chair of
steady and sedate pulses, that those ladies who
wish to reward well-doing, and return by acts
a kind word spoken in their behalf, should new
er let slip occasion to flirt in the first degree
with the eminent counsel 1t may be very near
naughtiness-so near as to have the aroma and
the flavor-but it is not over the line; it is
within the rules.
And of all the sensible things that LAWYERS
have said-and are they not always saying
them Fit is not easy to find anything truer
than what Mr.. Choate says. There isn't half
so much naughtiness as people believe. There
is general conspiracy to believe that certain
circumstances indicate something terrible, be-
cause something terrible has at some time ac-
companied those circumstances. But the cir
cumstances constantly occur without the crime
and regulations are blasted by precedent
There was great deal of good sense, as we'll
as good rhetoric, in what the orator said. In
the special case he defended, it may have been
simply stroke of policy and skill but he was
certainly right There will certainly be great
deal very innocent intimacy in many summer
resorts this season which will seem to be pro-
digious, and to threaten a dissolution of the
social fabric; but youth and fondness will still
frt, if you choose to call their natural associa-
ton flirting Magazine