The Canton advocate. [volume] (Canton, D.T. [S.D.]) 1877-1897, 1878-05-07
FuNS In THE W iFIITNiEi;ss5sSaBOX. !.
Amusing Answers by ODIuse Wllnesse,
-Fun-LOving Witnesses Who Delight
In Ba filing Lawyers.
From all the Year Round.


In recent trial at Winchester, a wit.
ness, failing to make his version of con-
versation Ineligible by reason of his
fondness for Essays I" and Essays he."
was taken i'll hand by Baron Martin
with the following result:
"My man, tell us now exactly what
passed" eyes, my lord. I said | would
not have the pig" "And what was his
answerw "He said he had been keep
ing it for me, and that he" "No,
no; he could not have said that; he
spoke in the first person" "No, my
lord, l was the first person that spoke"
" | mean don't bring in the third person.
repeat his exact words" There was
no third person, my lord; only him and
me-" "My good fellow, he did not say
he had been keeping the pig; he sad, Il
have been keeping it," ~ assure you,
my lord, there was no mention of your
lordship. We are on different stories
There was no third person there, and if
anything had been said about your lord
ship I must have heard it." The Baron
gave in. Lord Mansfield once came off
second best in endeavoring. to make a
witness use Ineligible language. The
man had deposed that he had not suffered
loss at the defendants hands, because he
was up to him. "What do you mean by
being up to him." inquired his lordship
" Mean, my lord? why, that was down
upon him" Clown upon him." re-
peated the judge, interrogatively.
=" Yes, my lord; deep as he thought
himself. | staggered him." Really"
said Lord Mansfield, az do not under
stand this sort of language" "Not un-
derstand itp exclaimed the unabashed
adept in slang, "Not understand it,
lord, what flat you must be-" Humor-
Gus in this way of putting things was
the gentleman who said stock exchange
bear was a person who sold what he had
not got; a bull man who bought what
he could not pay for, and that ga fnan-
cier" was "a man who doesn't want
shares buying them from one who has
none to SELL" A Jew, speaking of a
young man as his son-in-law, was accused
of misleading the court, since the young
man was really his son. Moses, however,
persisted that the name he put to the re-
lationship was the right one; and, ad-
dressing the bench, said: 81 was in Am
sterdam two years and three-quarters;
when I come home l finds this lad.
Now the law obliges me to maintain
him, and consequently he is my son in
law" "Well,' said Lord Mansfield,
" this is the best definition of a son-in-
law l ever yet heard" 1t may be
doubted if that legal luminary would
have acquiesced as readily as a
witness, whose name was not
to be found on the law. list, calling
himself a solicitor, on the ground that he
had been soliciting advertisements for
newspaper for the lat eight years
or held a bill poster, who could not read,
justified in describing himself as IA pro-
fessionai man connected with the press.
Assuredly he would not agree with the
street-nigger who admitted his calling
was low one, but still thought it so
much better than that followed by his
father that he felt inclined to be proud
of it. "And pray, sir" inquired the
learned gentleman cross-examining him.
"what was your fathers callingw
Well" demurely replied the sham
darkey, "he was a lawyer" An Irish
man examined before a fishery commits
sion seemed so inclined to avow anything
that one of the commissioners asked if
there were any whales on the west coast?
" Is it whaiesf" said Pat. "Sure, you
may see m by the dozen, spouting about
like water-engines all over the place."
care there many dog-hsh?" was the
next question. Dogs! begorra! ye'd
say 50 had ye passed the night there
Sure, we can't sleep for the barkin' o
thim." Do fying-hsh abound there?"
queried another gentleman. "Flying-
fish, is it?" quoth the veracious fellow.
" If we didn't put up the shutters every
night there wouldn't be whole pane o
glass in the house, for the craters batin
aginst them!" When he came up for
his expenses, Pat tried to coax some
thing extra out of the commits
sioners on the plea that he had
sworn to everything their honors
"axed" him. Irish witnesses are not
usually so tractable, no small amount of
skill and patience boing required to ex-
tract a definite answer to the simplest of
questions. Nothing pleases your fun.
loving Irishman better than to bother
lawyer, and the Irish courts have known
many dialogue like this: "Hou are a
Roman Catholic?" cam In Are
you not?" "You say l am" Come,
sir; what's your religion?' "The true
religion" "What religions that% "My
religion" &C And what is your religion ?"
"My mothers religion" "What was
your mothers religion" "She tux
whisky in her tay." "You bless your
self don't your When Pm done with
you, twill" "What place of worship
do you 60 top "The most convaynient.'
"Of what persuasion are you?" "My
persuasion is that you won't find out"
"What is your belief?' "That you
are puzzled" edo you confess? "Not
to YOU" "Who would you write to if
you were likely to die?'' 1.-The DOCTOR"
F" insist upon your answering me, sir.
Are you Roman Catholic" " | am"
And why didn't you say SO at oncew
You nevur axed me. You said / was
a great many things, but you never axed
me; you were drivin' cross words and
crooked questions at me, and l thought
it was manners to cut my behavior on
your own patthern."
How to Blow Out Lamp.
How to blow out a kerosene lamp is
a question of no little importance to
the thousands of our readers who
use the dangerous fluid for illuminat-
ing purposes. We therefore copy what
a correspondent OF the Schenectady
Union has to say on the subject: You
recently inquired how kerosene lamp
is to be extinguished without danger.
The following is q safe plan to follow: