A CHANCE MEDLEY.
A Chance Medley. (Constable and Co. 5s. net.)—This volume contains extracts from the column of legal odds and ends which appears in a contemporary. The period included is 1893-1909. It might perhaps have been improved by retrenchment, but there is plenty of entertainment and of instruction in it. On the whole, Chapter V., "Legal and Constitu- tional Points," may be put first. A joke may not be appreciated; but these "points" touch us in one way or another. Here is a case. A man and his wife were swept off the deck of a vessel by a wave. It was an important question which was to be held the survivor, and it was known that the man was a good swimmer and that the wife could not swim at all. The House of Lords held it to be a thing unascertainable. There are noteworthy things in other chapters. Here is a story which will not raise the reputa- tion of experts in handwriting. A judge handed to one of these gentlemen six bits of paper with writing on them. "Written at different times and by different hands," said the witness. " I wrote them all myself this morning," replied the judge. It is a curious instance of the change in the use of words that, whereas now a solicitor would not like to be called an " attorney," a century ago an attorney would have resented the name of "solicitor." Here is a specimen of the miscellaneous stories. A shilling sub- scription was being made for the funeral expenses of a poor attorney (" his effects were small because he had so few causes"). Curran offered a sovereign, saying, "Bury twenty." So Sidney Smith, asked whether he would bury a Dissenter in his church- yard, answered, "Yes, bury them all."
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