Curran

: Laws And Lawyers.

A farmer, attending a fair with a hundred pounds in his pocket,
took the precaution of depositing it in the hands of the landlord of the

public-house at which he stopped. Having occasion for it shortly

afterwards, he repaired to mine host for the amount, but the landlord, too

deep for the countryman, wondered what hundred was meant, and was quite

sure no such sum had ever been lodged in his hands. After many ineffectual

appea
s to the recollection, and finally to the honour of Bardolph, the

farmer applied to Curran for advice. "Have patience, my friend," said

Curran; "speak to the landlord civilly, and tell him you are convinced you

must have left your money with some other person. Take a friend with you,

and lodge with him another hundred in the presence of your friend, and then

come to me." We may imagine the vociferations of the honest rustic at such

advice; however, moved by the rhetoric of the worthy counsel, he followed

it, and returned to his legal friend. "And now, sir, I don't see as I'm to

be better off for this, if I get my second hundred again--but how is that

to be done?" "Go and ask him for it when he is alone," said the counsel.

"Aye, sir; but asking won't do I'm afraid, and not without my witness, at

any rate." "Never mind, take my advice," said the counsel; "do as I bid

you, and return to me." The farmer returned with the hundred, glad at any

rate to find that safe again his possession. "Now I suppose I must be

content, though I don't see as I'm much better off." "Well, then," said the

counsel, "now take your friend with you, and ask the landlord for the

hundred pounds your friend saw you leave with him." We need not add, that

the wily landlord found that he had been taken off his guard, while our

honest friend returned to thank his counsel exultingly, with both of his

hundreds in his pocket.





Mr. Curran was once engaged in a legal argument; behind him stood his

colleague, a gentleman whose person was remarkably tall and slender, and

who had originally intended to take orders. The judge observing that the

case under discussion involved a question of ecclesiastical law; "Then,"

said Curran, "I can refer your lordship to a _high_ authority behind me,

who was once intended for the church, though in my opinion he was fitter

for the steeple."





There is a celebrated reply of Mr. Curran to a remark of Lord Clare, who

curtly exclaimed at one of his legal positions, "O! if that be law, Mr.

Curran, I may burn my law books!" "Better _read_ them, my lord," was the

sarcastic and appropriate rejoinder.



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