counsel in a long and
dry argument quoted the legal maxim--_expressio unius est exclusio
alterius_--pronouncing the "i" in _unius_ as short as possible. This
roused his lordship from the drowsiness into which he had been lulled.
"Unyus! Mr. ----? We always pronounced that _unius_ at school."--"Oh
yes, my lord," replied the counsel; "but some of the poets use it short
for the sake of the metre."--"You forget, Mr. ----," rejoined the
judge, "that we are prosing here."

* * * * *

Mr. Justice Willes was a judge of kindly disposition, and when he had to
convey a rebuke he did so in some delicate and refined way like this. A
young barrister feeling in a hobble, wished to get out of it by saying,
"I throw myself on your lordship's hands."--"Mr. ----, I decline the
burden," replied the learned judge.

One day in judge's chambers, after being pressed by counsel very
strongly against his own views, he said with quaint humour: "I'm one of
the most obstinate men in the world."--"God forbid that I should be so
rude as to contradict your lordship," replied the counsel.

Mr. Montague Williams in his _Leaves of a Life_ relates the following
story of Mr. Justice Byles. He was once hearing a case in which a woman
was charged with causing the death of her child by not giving it proper
food, or treating it with the necessary care. Mr. F----, of the Western
Circuit, conducted the defence, and while addressing the jury said:

"Gentlemen, it appears to be impossible that the prisoner can have
committed this crime. A mother guilty of such conduct to her own child?
Why, it is repugnant to our better feelings"; and then being carried
away by his own eloquence, he proceeded: "Gentlemen, the beasts of the
field, the birds of the air, suckle their young, and----"

But at this point the learned judge interrupted him, and said:

"Mr. F----, if you establish the latter part of your proposition, your
client will be acquitted to a certainty."

And to the same authority we are indebted for a judge's gentle but
sarcastic reproof of a prosing counsel. In an action for false
imprisonment, heard before Mr. Justice Wightman, Ribton was addressing
the jury at great length, repeating himself constantly, and never giving
the slightest sign of winding up. When he had been pounding away for
several hours, the good old judge interposed, and said: "Mr. Ribton,
you've said that before."--"Have I, my lord?" said Ribton; "I'm ver