VERBAL CRITICISM OF LAWYERS.
A. GIBE. has been tried at the.Oxford.C,imult for setting fire Ms. dwelling-house, "some person being therein." It appeared in evidence that she had set fire to the thatch of the house in which her grandmother lived, andthat the old woman was in the house when the thatch was kindled. Rut the portion of the thatch set fire to extended over a pig-stye, or something of the kind, built against the back of the house. The grandmother, being told that
e house was on fire, ran to the door, saw smoke rising over the roof and returning into the house found it in flames. The pre- siding Judge inferred that the fire was applied to the portion of the thatch which overhung the outhouse ; that by the time it had extended to the other parts of the house the old woman had run out of doors ; and that, consequently., the girl had not "set fire to a dwelling-house, some person being therein." This may be good law : to laymen it sounds very like nonsense. There was but one roof; that roof was the root of the dwelling-house; that roof was set fire to at the time the old woman was in the house. If the learned Judge were travelling in a coach or by railway wrapped in a cloak, if by chance the skirt of his cloak were to fall over the knees of his next-door neighbour, and if a malicious fellow-traveller were to cut the skirt with a penknife, would the Judge admit that no damage had been done to his cloak, "he being therein"
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