The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-08-22
JUDICIAL WIT.
Exhibitions Of It In the Course of
Serious Trials.

Serious Trials.
Baltimore Sun: At the meeting of
| the Georgia Bar association at Atlanta
last week one of the most entertaining
features was paper by Mr. A H
Russell, of Augusta, on The Wit and
Wisdom of Judge Bleckley in the
Georgia Reports" Mr. RusselPs pa
per consisted of extracts from the de-
cisions of Judge Bleckley, in which
judicial learning and humorous and
philosophic remarks are combined in a
fashion somewhat unusual on the
bench In one case, that of the Central
railroad VS.. Roberts, he followed the
example of Mr.. Wegg and dropped into
poetry, delivering his dictum as fol-
lows:
The groom and bride each come within
The circle of the others kim
But kin and kin are still no more
Related than they were before.
In the case of Warren VS.. PristeT he
INDUCED in the philosophic reflection
that lit is always probable that some
thing improbable Will happen" and in
Hawks VS.. Hawks was not above the
pun that there are so many Hawks
in the facts of this case that the air
is little darkened."
In Lukens & Ford he administered
rebuke that is needed in other states:
case is a tomtit furnished with a garb
of feathers ample enough for a turkey.
Measured by the verdict, it's tiny body
has only the bulk of S25. but it struts
with display of record expanded into
30 pages of manuscript. 1t seems to us
that a more contracted plumage might
serve for so small bird, but perhaps
we are mistaken. In every forensic
season we have a considerable block
OF such cases. to be stripped and dis
sected for the cabinets of jurisprud-
ence. We endeavor "a pick our over
fedged poultry with judicial assiduity
and patience
Men who think that husbands have
some rights which wives are bound to
respect will applaud the following
observation from Braswell VS.. Suber:
In taking a wife a man does not
put himself under an overSeer. He is
not subordinate in his own family,
but the head of it. A subju-
gated husband is a less pleasing and
less energetic member of society than
one who keeps his true place yet knows
how to temper authority with affec-
ton"
There is in the following extract
from his opinion in Mcknight VS.
Anderson an amusing exposition of the
legal rights of the wife as well as of
her domestic privileges in the matter
OF SelI-SuppOrt:
1.-THE legal unity of husband and wife
has, in Georgia, for most purposes been
dissolved and a legal duality estab-
lished. A wife is a wife, and not a
husband as she was formerly. Legis-
lative chemistry has analysed the con-
Jugal unit and it is no longer treated
as an element, but as a compound. A
husband can make a gift to his wife,
although she lives in the house with
him and attends to her household du-
ties, as easily as he can make a present
to his neighbours wife This puts her
on an equality with other ladies' and
looks like progress. Under the new
order of things, when he induces her
to enter into the business of keeping
boarderS and promises to let her have
all the proceeds, he is allowed to keep
his promise if she keeps the boarders.
1t would seem that the law ought to
tolerate him in being faithful to his
word in such a matter, even though
he has pledged it only to his wife, and
we think it does
From all of which it appears that
judicial opinions may be entertaining
as well as instructive, and that a Judge
need not be dull in order to be legally
sound. Still it will not do for every
body to try to be funny on the bench.
lawyers are bound from considerations
of expendiency to laugh at the jokes
of the presiding judge. but let him be
beware how he plumes himself on his
wit on the strength of these subSer-
Went smiles. Comparatively few can
afford, like Judge Bleckley, to drive
law and humor in double harness. and
if they try it too often one of the team
is likely to come to grief