Part 10 (1/2)

”Bully” Egan had a great muscular figure, as may be guessed from the story of the duel with Curran. To his bulk he added a stentorian voice, which he freely used in Nisi Prius practice to browbeat opposing counsel and witnesses, and through which he acquired his _sobriquet_. On one occasion his opponent was a dark-visaged barrister who had made out a good case for his client. Egan, in the course of an eloquent address, begged the jury not to be carried away by the ”dark oblivion of a brow.”--”What do you mean by using such balderdash?” said a friend. ”It may be balderdash,” replied Egan, ”but depend upon it, it will do very well for that jury.” On another occasion he concluded a vituperative address by describing the defendant as ”a most naufrageous ruffian.”--”What sort of a ruffian is that?” whispered his junior. ”I have no idea,” responded Egan, ”but I think _it sounds well_.”

H. D. Grady was a strong supporter, in the Irish Parliament, of the Union of Great Britain and Ireland, although he represented a const.i.tuency strongly opposed to it; and he did not conceal the fact that the Government had made it worth his while to support them. ”What!”

exclaimed one of his const.i.tuents who remonstrated with him; ”do you mean to sell your country?”--”Thank G.o.d,” cried this patriot, ”I have a country to sell.”

For his Court work this anti-Nationalist barrister had what he called his ”jury-eye.” When he wanted a jury to note a particular point he kept winking his right eye at them. Entering the Court one day looking very depressed, a sympathetic friend asked if he was quite well, adding, ”You are not so lively as usual.”--”How can I be,” replied Grady, ”my jury-eye is out of order.”

He was examining a foreign sailor at Cork a.s.sizes. ”You are a Swede, I believe?”--”No, I am not.”--”What are you then?”--”I am a Dane.” Grady turned to the jury, ”Gentlemen, you hear the equivocating scoundrel. _Go down, sir!_”

Judge Boyd who, according to O'Connell, was guilty of sipping his wine through a peculiarly made tube from a metal inkstand, to which we have already referred, one day presided at a trial where a witness was charged with being intoxicated at the time he was speaking about. Mr.

Harry Grady laboured hard to show that the man had been sober. Judge Boyd at once interposed and said: ”Come now, my good man, it is a very important consideration; tell the Court truly, were you drunk or were you sober upon that occasion?”--”Oh, quite sober, my Lord.” Grady added, with a significant look at the _inkstand_, ”As sober as a judge!”

Mr. Beth.e.l.l, a barrister at the time of the Union of Ireland and Great Britain, like many of his brethren, published a pamphlet on that much-vexed subject. Mr. Lysaght, meeting him, said: ”Beth.e.l.l, you never told me you had published a pamphlet on the Union. The one I saw contained some of the best things I have ever seen in any of these publications.”--”I am proud you think so,” rejoined the other eagerly.

”Pray what was the thing that pleased you so much?”--”Well,” replied Lysaght, ”as I pa.s.sed a pastry-cook's shop this morning, I saw a girl come out with three hot mince-pies wrapped up in one of your productions!”

”Pleasant Ned Lysaght,” as his familiar friends called him, meeting a Dublin banker one day offered himself as an a.s.sistant if there was a vacancy in the bank's staff. ”You, my dear Lysaght,” said the banker; ”what position could you fill?”--”Two,” was the reply. ”If you made me _cas.h.i.+er_ for one day, I'll become _runner_ the next.”

And it was Lysaght who made a neat pun on his host's name at a dinner party during the Munster Circuit. The gentleman, named Flatly, was in the habit of inviting members of the Bar to his house when the Court was held in Limerick. One evening the conversation turned upon matrimony, and surprise was expressed that their host still remained a bachelor. He confessed that he never had had the courage to propose to a young lady.

”Depend upon it,” said Lysaght, ”if you ask any girl _boldly_ she will not refuse you, _Flatly_.”

O'Flanagan, author of _The Lord Chancellors of Ireland_, writes of Holmes, an Irish barrister: ”He made us laugh very much one day in the Queen's Bench. I was waiting for some case in which I was counsel, when the crier called, 'Pluck and Diggers,' and in came James Scott, Q.C., very red and heated, and, throwing his bag on the table within the bar, he said, 'My lords, I beg to a.s.sure your lords.h.i.+ps I feel so exhausted I am quite unable to argue this case. I have been speaking for three hours in the Court of Exchequer, and I am quite tired; and pray excuse me, my lords, I must get some refreshment.' The Chief Justice bowed, and said, 'Certainly, Mr. Scott.' So that gentleman left the Court. 'Mr. Holmes, you are in this case,' said the Chief Justice; 'we'll be happy to hear you.'--'Really, my lord, I am very tired too,' said Mr. Holmes.

'Surely,' said the Chief Justice, 'you have not been speaking for three hours in the Court of Exchequer? What has tired you?'--'Listening to Mr.

Scott,' was Holmes' sarcastic reply.”

Although rivals in their profession, C. K. Bushe had a great admiration for Plunket's abilities, and would not listen to any disparagement of them. One day while Plunket was speaking at the Bar a friend said to Bushe, ”Well, if it was not for the eloquence, I'd as soon listen to ----,” who was a very prosy speaker. ”No doubt,” replied Bushe, ”just as the Connaught man said, ''Pon my conscience if it was not for the malt and the hops, I'd as soon drink ditch water as porter.'”

There is an impromptu of Bushe's upon two political agitators of the day who had declined an appeal to arms, one on account of his wife, the other from the affection in which he held his daughter:

”Two heroes of Erin, abhorrent of slaughter, Improved on the Hebrew command-- One honoured his wife, and the other his daughter, That 'their' days might be long in 'the land.'”

A young barrister once tried to raise a laugh at the Mess dinner at the expense of ”Jerry Keller,” a barrister who was prominent in social circles of Dublin, and whose cousin, a wine merchant, held the contract for supplying wine to the Mess cellar. ”I have noticed,” said the junior, ”that the claret bottles are growing smaller and smaller at each a.s.sizes since your cousin became our wine merchant.”--”Whist!” replied Jerry; ”don't you be talking of what you know nothing about. It's quite natural the bottles should be growing smaller, because we all know _they shrink in the was.h.i.+ng_.”

An ingenious expedient was devised to save a prisoner charged with robbery in the Criminal Court at Dublin. The princ.i.p.al thing that appeared in evidence against him was a confession, alleged to have been made by him at the police office. The doc.u.ment, purporting to contain this self-criminating acknowledgment, was produced by the officer, and the following pa.s.sage was read from it:

”Mangan said he never robbed but twice Said it was Crawford.”

This, it will be observed, has no mark of the writer having any notion of punctuation, but the meaning attached to it was, that

”Mangan said he never robbed but twice.

_Said it was Crawford._”

Mr. O'Gorman, the counsel for the prisoner, begged to look at the paper.