Punch (16.1849)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

47

John Bull I'm advising, 'Tib best to be wise in

A thing folks are prizing at more than it's worth;
One point we may settle, that men can't eat metal,

And a purseful of gold is small comfort in deartn.
To the Nightingale Jenny give your ear and your money :

If her song's sweet as honey, her heart is as rare ;
But he's wisest who clinches his purse, and ear pinches,

When the Siren goldfinches are singing so fair.

Leave these Sirens to warble, impassive as marble,

O: deaf as a barbel, their lures to defeat;
A.nd your fields calmly tilling, or hard at your milling,

Just wait till they're spilling their gold at your feet.
Remember the story of the sage old and hoary,

Who his sons told before he went; hence to elsewhere,
That a treasure lay hid in his field, which so bidden,

They dug, raised a crop, and their treasure found there.

CASES POR THE OPINION OP ME. BRIEFLESS. I of an entire limb, but merely of an eye or a nose, the matter would have

i assumed another feature. That the law recognises limbs as an important
part of the judicial system, is, I think, clear, for a " limb of the law " is a

It is .impossible to give any idea—without
going to a butter-shop and having the papers
weighed—of the immense mass of documents
that, are weekly dropped into our letter-box,
in the shape of Cases for the opinion of
Mb. Briefless. The extraordinary knack
that learned gentleman possesses of hitting
right nails on their heads—and it requires
a hammer very different from a niny-hammer
to do this—has caused a general feeling in
the profession, that, as a companion 1o
Smith's Leading Cases, a series of Brief-
less's Leading Cases would be " tremen-
. dously useful" and "terrifically popular."
We have therefore sent a "special re-
tainer " to our learned friend—we beg to
say that, like a Baron of old, we have plenty
of " retainers" always waiting in our Hall to run on errands—and Mr.
Briefless has consented to furnish, "from time to time," but not
" at all times," an opinion upon some nice " moot point," for the purpose
of adding a new collection of Leading Cases to every lawyer's library.

The following curious facts have been already laid before him, to
"peruse, advise, and settle;" and we have every confidence in the
regular settler put in by Mr. Briefless upon this occasion,

CASE.—On a trial before a Dublin jury, some prisoners were found
guilty, when their counsel rose to object to the reception of the verdict,
on the ground that the law requires a verdict to be found by twelve men,
and that one of the jurors, having a wooden leg, there were not more
than eleven men and three-quarters in the box when the prisoners were
found guilty. The Judge being unable to come to a decision upon the
point, the opinion of Mr. Briefless is required on the whole matter.

OPINION.—The juryman's wooden leg is certainly a peg on which a
doubt may be hung ; though I think, if the juror had not been deficient

common term; and, moreover, I am disposed to hold, that if the twelve
jurymen had among them only twenty-three le;s, there was one member
of the jury absent at the time the verdict was given.

It may perhaps be urged that as there was a wooden leg in Court at,
the time, though not exactly a lignum vita, it had a kind of footing in
the jury-box; but then the question will arise, not whether the locus
standi was complete, but whether in fact the prosecution must fail,
from not having an additional leg to stand upon. It is a great privi-
lege of accused persons, that their cises should be judged of by a jury,
" to the best of their understanding." But I think the prisoners here
cannot have had the benefit of this beautiful provision ; for when there
was a juryman in the box, the best of whose understanding consisted
of a wooden leg, I think the interests of justice demand some relaxa-
tion, though it is difficult, in a case like this, to say where the shoe
pinches. If I may reason from analogy—and why may I not ?—I
should say the deficient leg cuts away the ground from under the
prosecution, because it is clear enough that when a prisoner's fate is
in the hands of a jury, there must be twenty-four hands to make the
jury complete; and, by a parity of reasoning, there should be twenty-
four feet where there are twenty-four hands ; and if we are to measure
out justice by one uniform twenty-four foot rule, the exact complement
of legs must be indispensable.

There is some difficulty presents itself in the consideration whether
the juryman should have been challenged before he went into the box ;
but, I am disposed to think that challenging a man with a wooden leg
is cowardly, and repugnant to the British character. The objection to
an absent limb need not, be taken in lim{b)ine, at least if my view is
the right one. And I must on the whole case give it as my distinct
opinion that the verdict cannot stand, because one of the jurymen was
almost in the same predicament, or at all events he was unable to take
with perfect ease such steps as he may have thought proper •, and, as
a juryman must not have his hands in any way tied, I think, a fortiori,
he should not have his legs in the smallest degree fettered.