IRISH JUDGES.
Reading edition
It is extremely difficult to get the Irish to be grave upon grave subjects. With a few exceptions in favour of absolute dulness and mediocrity, all our judges are drôles de corps, and the highest the drollest of any. What was Joe Miller to Judge Norbury, who kept the bar in a roar for nearly half a century, and rarely passed sentence of death without making some of his auditors die laughing?
“Here is a fellow, my lord,” (said an attorney, the other day, to one of our legal chiefs,) “accused of stealing turnips; under what act can he be attacked?”
“I really don’t know,” said the judge, without taking his eyes from the paper on which he was writing.
“You don’t know, my lord?”
“No, not immediately, Mr. ——.”
“What does your lordship think of the timber act?”
“Probably—that is, if the turnips were sticky!”