When Murphy arose to address the jury, he said:—
'Gentlemen of the jury, look at the well-tailored impostor without a rag of honesty to take the gloss off his new clothes.'
Another counsel in the case was Mr. Byrne. He was always in impecunious circumstances despite his legal eloquence, but the lack of a balance at his banker's never troubled him.
Once he took Chief Justice Whiteside to see his new house in Dublin, which he had furnished in sumptuous style.
'Don't you think I deserve great credit for this?' he asked at length.
'Yes,' retorted Whiteside, 'and you appear to have got it.'
Lord Justice Christian, who had declined to sit on the Appeal, was considered one of the soundest opinions in Ireland. When he ceased to be sole Judge of Appeal, he had addressed the Bar after this fashion:—
'As this is the last time I sit as sole Judge of Appeal, it is an opportune time for me to review my decisions. By a curious coincidence, I have been thirteen years in this Court, and I have decided thirteen cases which have been taken to the House of Lords. Eleven of my decisions were confirmed, one appeal was withdrawn, and the last was a purely equity case. The two equity lords went with me, the two common law lords were against me, and when I inform the Bar that my judgment was reversed on the casting vote of Lord O'Hagan, I do not think they will attach much importance to the decision.'
Judge Christian's allusion to the Land Act is most noteworthy, for he said:—
'The property of the country is confided to the discretion of certain roving commissioners without any fixed rules to guide and direct them. In fact, we have reverted to the primitive state of society, where men make and administer the laws in the same breath.'