Show I JUDICIAL WIT Exhibitions of It In the Course of serious Trials Baltimore Sun At the meeting of the Georgia Bar association at Atlanta last week one of te most entertaIning features was a paper by 111 A H Russell of Augusta on The WIt and Wisdom of Judge Beckley In the Georgia Reports lll Russels paper pa-per consIsted of extracts from the decisions de-cisions of Judge Bleckley In which judicial learning and humorous and philosophic remarks are combined in a fashion somewhat unusual on the bench In one case that of the Central railroad vs Roberts he followed the example of Mr Wegg and dropped into 1 poetry delivering hIs dIctum as Lol lows The groom and bride each come within The cIrcle of the others kin But kin and kin are still no more Related than they were before In the case of Warren vs Prlstel he Indulged in the philosophic reflection that it Is always probable that something I some-thIng improbable wIll happen and In Hawks vs Hawks was not above the I pun that there are so many Hawks 1 in the facts of thIs case that the all lIs a little darkened In Lukens Ford he administered a 1 rebuke that is needed in other states In the ornithology of litigation this case is a tomtIt furnished with a garb of feathers ample enough for a turkey Measured by the verdict Its tiny bOdy has only the bulk of 2 but it struts with of record a display expanded into 3 pages of manuscrpt I seems to us that a more contracted plumage mIght sere for so small a bIrd but perhaps we are mistaken In every forensic season we have a considerable block of such cases to be strIpped and dissected dis-sected for the cabinets of jUrisprudence jUrisprud-ence We endeaYori pick our over and fledged patience poultry with judicial assiduity Men who think that husbands have some rights which wIves are bound to respect will applaud the following 1 observation from Braswel vs Suber In taking a wife a man does not J put himself under an overseer He Is not a subordinate in his own family but the head of i A subjugated subju-gated husband is a less pleasing and less energetic member of society tan one who keeps his true place yet knows how to temper authority with affection affec-tion tonThere There is in the following extract from his opinion In cNaught vs Anderson an amusing exposition of the legal rIghts of the wIfe as weB a of her domestic privileges in the mater of selfsupport selsupport The legal unity of husband and wife has in GeorgIa for most purposes been dissolved and a lecal duality estah Ushed A wife is ii wieand not a husband as she was formerly Legislative Legis-lative chemistry has analyzed the conjugal con-jugal unIt and It is no longer treated as an element but as a compound A I husband can make a gift to hIs wife I although she lives in the house with I him and attends to her household duties du-ties as easily as he can make a present I to his neIghbors wife ThIs puts heron her-on an equality with other ladies and I looks like progress Under the new order of things when he induces her I to enter Into the business of keeping keping I boarders and promises to let her have I aB the proceeds he is allowed to keep hIs promise If she keeps the boarders I I would seem that the law ought to tolerate him In being faithful to his I word in such a matter even though i he has pledged i only to his wife and I we think i does I From an of whIch it appears that judicial opinions may be entertaining I I as weB as Instructive and that a judge > need not be dun in order to be legally sound Still i will trot do for everybody every-body to try to be funny on the bench lawyers are bound from considerations of expendienci to laugh at the jokes of the presiding judge but let him bp I beware how he plumes himself on his I wit on the strength of these subservient I subser-vient smiles Comparatively few can afford like Judge Bleckley to drive law and humor in double harness and if they try i too often one of the team is likely to come to grIef |