FRESH. NOT TIGHT.
here is, or was, in this town a Public-house, wherein the administration of justice was, and may still be, wont to be nightly burlesqued by certain buffoons under the name of a Judge and Jury Club. Let us hope that this was the only Court of Law which could possibly have been in the eye of the Attorney-general when, in the course of his concise oration delivered on behalf of the Infant against the Claimant, he spoke, with reference to the latter, as follows:—
"Besides, such is the pleasantry—I would not say the profit—of our English law, that if he fails in this case he may go at it again with fresh witnesses, let us hope with fresh counsel—(laughter)—at least with a fresh jury—I say nothing of a fresh judge. (Continued laughter.)"
The members of the Temperance League, and the United Kingdom Alliance must surely have been shocked, as many as those who read and duly considered the foregoing words, by the idea which they suggest of a generally Fresh Court of Common Pleas. This horrid image was enough to have unfixed their hair and made their excited hearts knock at their ribs beyond the use of nature. Sobriety is so specially characteristic of the Ermine that "sober as a Judge" is an adage; not, indeed, because Judges are supposed not to drink, but to be able to drink any quantity. Irreproachable with laxity in the discharge of their high functions, British Judges are at all times incapable of getting tight.