ease my mind by keeping these two respectable gentlemen in custody until
seven o'clock. I leave for Dublin at five, and I should like to have at
least two hours' start of them." There is also the story of a barrister
who made an eloquent speech and got his client off, but he was very
anxious to know whether the prisoner was guilty or not. "Well, sir,"
said the man when applied to, "to tell the truth I thought I was guilty
until I heard you speak, and then I didn't see how I could be." This at
once recalls an old story. "Prisoner, I understand you confess your
guilt," said the judge. "No, I don't," said the prisoner. "My counsel
has convinced me of my innocence."

On hearing that some spendthrift barristers, friends of his, were
appointed to be Commissioners of Insolvent Debtors the Chief Baron
remarked, "At all events, the insolvents can't complain of not being
tried by their peers." It was the same judge who caustically observed,
after a long and dull legal argument: "I agree with my brother J----,
for the reasons given by my brother M----." A prisoner once was given a
practical specimen of his lordship's wit, and must have been rather
distressed by it. He was passing sentence upon a pickpocket, and
ordering a punishment common at that time. "You will be whipped from
North Gate to South Gate," said the judge. "Bad luck to you, you old
blackguard," said the prisoner. "--And back again," said the Chief
Baron, as if he had been interrupted in the delivery of the sentence.

A cause of much celebrity was tried at a county Assize, at which Chief
Baron O'Grady presided. Bushe, then a K.C., who held a brief for the
defence, was pleading the cause of his client with much eloquence, when
a donkey in the courtyard outside set up a loud bray. "One at a time,
brother Bushe!" called out his lordship. Peals of laughter filled the
Court. The counsel bore the interruption as best he could. The judge was
proceeding to sum up with his usual ability: the donkey again began to
bray. "I beg your lordship's pardon," said Bushe, putting his hand to
his ear; "but there is such an echo in the Court that I can't hear a
word you say."

In his charges to juries, O'Grady frequently made some quaint remarks.
There was a Kerry case in which a number of men were indicted for riot
and assault. Several of them bore the familiar names of O'Donoghue,
Moriarty, Duggan, &c., while among the jurymen these names were also
found. Well knowing that consangu