property?"--"Yes."--"When you picked it up you saw it
was damaged?"--"Yes."--"And looking inside you saw the prisoner's
name, J-O-H-N C-O-N-N-O-R?" (here he spelt out the name slowly).
"Yes," was the answer. "There is no name inside at all, my lord,"
said O'Connell, and the prisoner was saved.

* * * * *

Explaining to a judge his absence from the Civil Court at the time a
case was heard, in which he should have appeared as counsel, O'Connell
said he could not leave a client in the Criminal Court until the verdict
was given. "What was it?" inquired the judge. "Acquitted," responded
O'Connell. "Then you have got off a wretch who is not fit to live," said
the judge. O'Connell, knowing his lordship to be a very religious man,
at once replied: "I am sure you will agree with me that a man whom you
regard as not fit to _live_ would be still more _unfit_ to die."

* * * * *

There was a young barrister--a contemporary of O'Connell--named Parsons,
who had a good deal of humour, and who hated the whole tribe of
attorneys. Perhaps they had not treated him very well, but his prejudice
against them was very constant and conspicuous. One day, in the Hall of
the Four Courts, an attorney came up to him to beg a subscription
towards burying a brother attorney who had died in distressed
circumstances. Parsons took out a one-pound note and tendered it. "Oh,
Mr. Parsons," said the applicant, "I do not want so much--I only ask a
shilling from each contributor. I have limited myself to that, and I
cannot really take more."--"Oh, take it, take it," said Parsons; "for
God's sake, my good sir, take the pound, and while you are at it bury
twenty of them."

There is a terseness in the following which seems to be inimitable.
Lord Norbury was travelling with Parsons; they passed a gibbet.
"Parsons," said Norbury, with a chuckle, "where would _you_ be now if
every one had his due?"--"Alone in my carriage," replied Parsons.

* * * * *

Here is a young Irishman's first Bar-speech. "Your lordships perceive
that we stand here as our grandmothers' administrators _de bonis non_;
and really, my lords, it does strike me that it would be a monstrous
thing to say that a party can now come in, in the very teeth of an Act
of Parliament, and actually turn us round, under colour of hanging us
up, on the foot of a contract made behind our backs."

A learned Serje