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Humorous
Side

Oh what times! what morals!-Cicero

A Moral Lesson. At the end of a South Carolina negro meeting, it was decided to take up a collection for charity. The chairman passed the hat himself. He dropped a dime in it for a nest egg.

Well, every right hand there entered that hat, and yet, at the end, when the chairman turned the hat over and shook it, not so much as his own contribution dropped out.

"Fo' de lan's sake!" he cried. "Ah's eben los' de dime Ah stahted wiv!"

All the rows of faces looked puzzled. Who was the lucky man? Finally the venerable Calhoun White summed up the situation.

"Breddern," he said solemnly, rising from his seat, "dar 'pears ter be a great moral lesson roun' heah somewhar."

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plained the colored party. "A safety razah am only carried fo' de moral effec'."-Philadelphia Telegraph.

No Robbery. The question of the wedding fee is one that ministers are apt to leave to the generosity of the bridegroom. Sometimes this happy person is too impecunious to pay cash or to offer anything as its equivalent. This was not true, however, of the bride-groom who took the minister aside at the close of the ceremony and said:

"Say, parson, I'm sorry, but the fact is I am too near broke to pay you any cash for this job, but I am a gas-fitter, and I'll tell you what I'll do if you want me to. I'll go down into your cellar and fix your gas meter so that it won't register but half, if you say so."-New York Evening Post.

Insurance a Luxury. To an old darky haled before him, a Southern judge put this question:

"Why did you burn your house down just after getting it insured?"

Whereupon the darky replied: "Yo' Honah, a pore man like me can't afford to have a house and insurance, too."

A Story Jones Tells. A well-known Philadelphia lawyer tells of an enterprising man in that city who retained him to prosecute an action. Consultation with the plaintiff's witnesses revealed the fact that their stories were most conflicting, and consequently far from convincing. This fact was communicated by the lawyer to his client, and the latter was advised to drop the

suit. After some hesitation the client said that he would have a talk with the witnesses, and the next day inform the lawyer what he would do in the matter. The next day the client appeared, quite cheerful, and with the air of a man who has won a good fight.

"I have talked to all witnesses," said he, "and they all say they must have. been mistaken when they conferred with you. They all see it alike now. I have also seen some of the jurymen, and they think I will win. Now, if there is such a thing as justice in law, we can't lose."-Chicago Record-Herald.

Lawyer Got His Answer. At a recent trial one of the witnesses was a green countryman, unused to the ways of the law, but quick, as it proved, to understand its principles. After a severe cross-examination the counsel for the prosecution paused, and then, putting on a look of severity, exclaimed:

"Mr. Kilkins, has not an effort been made to induce you to tell a different story?"

"A different story from what I told, sir?"

"That is what I mean."

"Yes, sir, several persons have tried to get me to tell a different story from what I have told, but they couldn't."

"Now, sir, upon your oath, I wish to know who those persons are."

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"Well, I guess you've tried 'bout as hard as any of them."-The Star.

Too Great a Strain. "Is dat a kickin' mule?" asked Mr. Erastus Pinkley. "Does you want to buy him?" inquired Uncle Rasbury, cautiously. "No."

"Den whut's de use o' comin' aroun' me to spoil my reputation foh truth an' mendacity?"-Washington Star.

Too Good. "To say that honesty is the best policy,—to say, in other words, that the more honest you are the richer you will become,-that is a silly and self-evident lie."

The speaker, Harvey Woodruff, the

well-known G. A. R. historian of Houston, had been discussing the honesty of George Washington. He continued:

"To be virtuous means to be poor and wretched. Take the case of Auntie Martha Washington Clay.

"Auntie Martha visited the office of a Nola Chucky lawyer and said:

"Ah wants a divo'ce from mah husband Cal.'

"Why, auntie, what has Cal been doing?'

"He's done got religion, sah, an' Ah hain't tasted chicken fo' free months.'"-Minn. Journal.

Working the Rube. When the bottom fell out of a recent real estate boom in a southwestern state, the desire to get rid of the property was as great as it had been to acquire it. One day a lawyer while traveling along the country road met an old friend of his, wearily but happily leading a reluctant cow toward town. Inquiry elicited the information that he acquired the cow in exchange for a city lot.

"And do you know," said the new owner of the cow, laughing, "I jest turned a trick with that old rube. He can't read a word, and in the deed I worked off two lots on him instead of one."-New York Times.

Sonny Was a Bungler. A certain negro lad had been brought into an Alabama police court for the fifth time, charged with stealing chickens. The magistrate determined to appeal to the boy's father.

"See here," said his Honor, "this boy of yours has been in this court so many times charged with chicken stealing that I'm tired of seeing him here."

"I doesn't blame you, jedge," said the parent, "an' I's tired of seein' him here as you is."

"Then why don't you teach him how to act? Show him the right way, and he won't be coming here."

"I has showed him the right way," said the father, "but he jest don't seem to have no talent for learning how, jedge, he always gets caught."-National Monthly..

The Hall of Fame

"On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled."-Spenser.

In March, 1900, the New York University announced that it had received a gift of $250,000 from an unknown donor, for the establishment, in connection with that institution, of a Hall of Fame for eminent Americans.

In carrying out this plan, a structure has been built in the form of a terrace with superimposed colonnade connecting the University Hall of Philosophy with the Hall of Languages. On the ground floor is a museum consisting of a corridor and six halls to contain mementoes of those whose names are inscribed above. The colonnade over this is 600 feet long, with provision for 150 panels, each about two feet by six feet, each to bear the name of a distinguished American. Only names of Americans who have been deceased at least ten years may be chosen.

Fifty names were to be chosen in 1900, and five more each successive period of five years to the end of the century. Subsequent provision has been made for a hall of fame for women.

The council invites nominations from the public. Every nomination seconded by a member of the University Senate is submitted to an electorate of one hundred eminent citizens selected by the council. A candidate must receive not less than fifty-one votes to be accepted.

The hall was dedicated on May 30, 1901, when twenty-five or more national associations each unveiled one of the bronze tablets in the colonnade, and on May 30, 1907, eleven new tablets were unveiled. The total number of names admitted in the four elections held is fifty men and six women.

Among the names enrolled the following are of men who were admitted to the bar and whom the law may thus claim for her own, although some of them achieved eminence in other lines:

JOHN ADAMS

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
RUFUS CHOATE

HENRY, CLAY

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

ANDREW JACKSON

THOMAS JEFFERSON

JAMES KENT

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
JAMES MADISON

HORACE MANN
JOHN MARSHALL

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
JOSEPH STORY

DANIEL WEBSTER

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HALL OF FAME, UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, NEW YORK CITY. A description of this building may be found on the back of this page.

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E

BY HORACE HENRY HAGAN

of the Oklahoma City Bar

VEN that tritest of truisms, the ephemerality of a lawyer's fame, offers no adequate explanation of the obscurity in which sleeps the genius of William Pinkney. For Pinkney was not merely a great lawyer. According to testimony that leaves no room for doubt or controversy, he was the very greatest lawyer that this country has ever produced. Nor was this all. He served his country with distinction and success in the labyrinths of diplomacy, at the Cabinet table, in the halls of Congress, and even on the field of battle. Above all, at a most critical point of our history, when the clamor of contending sections disturbed the tranquillity of the Sage of Monticello, "like a fire bell ringing in the night," to use Jefferson's own expressive phrase, it was Pinkney who rose to the occasion and recalled Senators to a sense of their duty and patriotism. This last fact alone, entirely disconnected from the splendor of his legal achievement, should have served to secure for Pinkney's name a place side by side with those of Clay and Webster. The explanation, therefore, must be sought elsewhere than in the proverb mentioned. The truth of the matter is that in the period prior to 1865 the or

dinary historical perspective is confined to two events,-the revolution and the consequent founding of the Union, and the Civil War. Everything and more especially everyone-not intimately and conspicuously connected with one of these events falls by the wayside. Pinkney was born too late to be identified prominently with the Revolution, and died too soon to become one of the leading actors in the compelling drama that, commencing in 1820, slowly but inevitably approached the grand climax of '61.

Pinkney has not been the only sufferer by reason of this condition. Thus complete forgetfulness veils the memory of Fisher Ames, who, when the efficacy of the Constitution hung as it were on a thread, by a single speech, of such logical depths and dazzling eloquence that his opponents claimed that it was unfair to put its subject to a vote immediately after its delivery, transformed a despairing minority in favor of the Jay treaty into a triumphant majority. But Fisher Ames, like Pinkney, like Gallatin, and many another patriot worthy of a better fate, has been buried in the valley of oblivion that lies between the twin mountains of the Revolution and the Civil War.

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William Pinkney was born in Annapolis, Maryland, in March, 1764. His father was a Tory, and in consequence

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