The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-11-27
vouched for by EN- Perkins.


Chief Justice Waite, who delighted 20
tell legal stories, once told me this story
ABOUT Evarts and Conkling, writes Iii
Perkins to the Chicago Times Herald:
Roscoe Conkling came into Mr.. Evarts'
Office one day, when he was a young law
yer, IN quite nervous state.
You seem to be very much excited,
Mr- Conkiing,' said Mr. Eyarts. as Ros-
coe walked up and down the room.
Yes, I'm provoked-I am provoked, ~
dissatisfied about my fee before"
Evarts
Why. 1 defended Gibbons for arson.
you know He was convicted, but l did
hard work for him. 1 took him TO the SUI
perior court and he was convicted, then
on TO the supreme court and the supreme
court confirmed the judgment and gave
MIN ten years in the penitenuary. l
charged him 5000, and now Gibbons is
grumbllng about lt-SayS it's too much.
Now, Mr.. Evarts, l ask you, if l really
charged too much2"
We'll" said Mir. Evarts. very deliber-
ately. "Of course you did a good deal Of
Work, and 5000 is not very big fee, but
10 be frank with you, Mr.. Conkltng, my
deliberate opinion is-that-he-might-
have-bcen-cOnVlcted- -less--mOney.'
Chief Justice Fuller tells many legal
stores once, he said, he was quite
shocked during a real estate trial in Chi
cagO. 1t was years and years ago, when
john Wentworth was said to go every
morning and look through knot-hole in
a fence around a vacant state street lot.
pleasure there was looking through he
knOt-hOle, Wentworth said
why, it is a sensation-an ineXpressa-
bic sensation for me to look through that
board fence and see one piece of Chicago
real estate without mortgage on it."
Tom b. Reed tells me that when Chief
Justice Fuller was a boy he belonged TO
a debating club in Oldtown, Me. one
evening capital punishment was debated.
The deacon of the church was for hang
ing. Young Fuller was opposed to cap
ital punishment.
Said the deacon. quoting from the Mo-
sale law: Whose sheddeth mans blood,
by man his blood shall he she'd Thinking
this to be a bombshell to his opponents,
he dwelt upon it until his time had ex-
PRED, when Young Fuller sprang to his
feet and said:
"Supposing we take the law which the
gentleman has quoted and see what the
logical deduction would come to. For
example, one man kills another; another
man kills him, and so on, until we come
to the last man on earth. Who's going
to kill him? lie dare not commit suicide,
for that same law forbids it. Now, dea-
con-" continued the boy, what are you
going to do with that last MANI"
The boys logic called out rounds of
applause and vanquished the deacon.
Some of our best wit comes through
our city judges in their examination of
prisoners.
one day O'Ranerty was up before Judge
Brady i'm New York for assaulting Pat
rick Murphy, and this was the examina-
ton:
mir. O'Raferty,' said the judge. "why
did you strike Mr.. Murphy?'
Because Murphy would not give me a
civil answer to a civil question, yer
honor
What was the civil question you asked
him?"
Il asked him, as polite as yez phase,
Murphy, amt your own brother the big
gest thafe on Manhattan Island, except
ing yourself and your uncle who is absent
at the penitentiary in Sing Sing?"
And what rude answer did he give to
such a very civil question:"
He said to me: 'Av course, prisint com
pany excepted SO l said, Murphy, you
another, and sthruck him wild me fist"