tion that you would be all liable to indictment for murder in the first degree, should you find a verdict against my client."

At this announcement the jury looked startled, the judge looked astonished, and at the several negative compliments paid to his better half, the plaintiff seemed nowise pleased. The counsel next referred to the head of his client, silvered o'er with age-no, not with age, for he was comparatively a young man, but with the frosts of misfortune. Here the defendant darted out of the court in an apparent rage. counsel continued his ingenious defence, and finally wound up by an ardent appeal to the virtue, intelligence, independence and magnanimity of the jury, to find for the defendant.

The

The opposite counsel replied. They referred to the conclusive nature of the evidence, to the clearness of the law and the naked facts of the case. The judge charged in favour of the plaintiff, and censured the erratic and unprofessional couse of defendant's counsel, but it was all of no avail. The eloquence of Harnett, the pity-exciting picture which he drew of Mackew's wife, (in which by the way there was not one word of truth, for she happened to be a brisk, bouncing woman,) but above all his threat about arraigning them for murder, did the business with the jury, and without retiring from their seats they brought in a verdict for the defendant.

Harnett immediately left the court, and on his way up to the tavern met his client, who seemed flushed with liquor and much excited. "Joy! my boy, joy!" said the delighted counsel, "I've gained the suit."

"D-n the suit and d―n you and d-n the negroes," said Mackew, "I would'nt suffer the abuse you gave the old woman and myself for the whole concarn. I'll lick you for it any way you can fix it;"" and here he brandished a large stick over his zealous lawyer's head, and would have repaid him for his dexterous professional service with a sound beating, had not mutual friends interposed.

Explanations were made to Mackew, who at length became convinced that the talk about his wife's age, ugliness, &c., and about his own gray hair, was "all in his eye and Elizabeth Martin;" so they adjourned to the tavern and had a general drink.

THE DANGER OF DIDDLING A BARBER.

171

THE DANGER OF DIDDLING A BARBER.

A QUEER looking genius is Paul Preshraini.-He looks as if nature had formed him while under a state of mesmeric influence, or at a time when she was unconscious of what she was doing. Paul has never made an effort to thwart her design; au contraire, as the Algerines say, he invariably seconds her intention by acting oddly-in a way that nobody else but Paul would act. He studied the science of shaving under a Parisian tonseur; it is a business that affords a wide field for the exercise of his eccentricities, and he lets no available opportunity pass without playing one of his odd pranks.

His rainbow-coloured pole graces the door of a shanty in Basin street at the present writing. This shaving saloon is like himself-queer, very queer. Besides the pole, the door is ornamented with the heraldic device of a bloody arm, which is an intimation to the world that Paul is a phlebotomist as well as an exterminator of beards. The interior of the apartment is graced with a miniature Bonaparte in large boots and a cocked hat, a mirror, through which a man can see his face "in spots," and the walls are pasted over with more French troops than set out on the Russian expedition or fought at Waterloo. Though anxious to shave the world, he neglects in a great measure himself; and for one who deals so much in soft soap he is candid-very candid-in the expression of his opinions. He is as much opposed to the credit system as Tom Benton is; and is in favour of imposing a heavy duty on money brokers, as a protective tariff to legitimate shaving.

Jean Ruean paid Paul a visit at his shaving shop on Sunday morning, with a view of getting his face divested of its superfluous beard, as was his daily custom.

"Bon jour, mon ami,” said Jean.

"Tres bien, Monsieur," said Paul.

Jean sat himself down in the shaving chair and made a few pantomimic motious with his hand, which meant "lather away old feller."

Paul well understood him; he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, saying, "No, no, Monsieur Ruean-no, no; by gar you cannot, not any at all come dat game upon dis

enfant. I shave you one time-you say you pay-I say vera good (he shrugs the shoulders.) I shave you two time-you say you pay-I say vera good (another shrug.) I shave you three time-you say you pay-I say vera good-(a third shrug.) Now you say shave four time, and I say no, G-d d-n. You pay, I shave-you no pay, I no shave. By gar dat one M'dlle Lucy Long may take her time—but Paul Preshraini-dat is me-don't give no time nevare, not no more—

nevare."

Jean, however, it appears, tipped the "tin" in his pocket, and assured Paul that as soon as he would shave him he

would pay off the account. On the strength of this promise Paul set to work, and had Jean's beard off in as quick time as it could be done by a shaving machine. Instead of paying him in full, however, Jean handed him two bits as a first instalment, nor would he hand him any more. At this Paul became so much incensed, that he uttered a sacre and its adjuncts on the head of Jean, whipping up a loaded pistol at the same time and firing it off at him!

Jean ran to the police office, made affidavit of the facts and had Paul arrested; he says he heard the ball whistle by his ear like wind through the keyhole of a door.

The case is to undergo a further examination to-morrow.

CABBAGE.

A CASE Came before the Recorder yesterday which elicited considerable law and logic. It has its origin in the alleged taking, stealing and carrying away a single head-a solitary head of cabbage. The name of the plaintiff was Mary M'Gloin, that of the defendant was Hans Von Grout.

"Well, Mary M'Gloin," said the Recorder, "what about the head of cabbage?"

"O, the d- -la know I know what's about it," said Mary. "I wouldn't wondher in the layst if pickle was about it now, for they say thim Dutch is as fond of sour krout as the Frinch is of frogs, or as the people of our beautiful, blissed country, the Lord betune them and harm, is of praytees."

Recorder."I mean, how was the head of cabbage stolen from you?"

"Faith, your honour, I had it where the piper had the jig —undher me arm, coming from the market, when this fellow, that looks like a hot-house vegetable, comes up to me and says he to me, in a foreign gibberish that I could scarcely undherstand—it's a pity, your honour, that he wasn't sint to Ireland to finish his idication, and be taught to spayk the King's English daycent, and pronounce his word like a Christian. But as I was saying, he comes up to me and he had another head of cabbage. Did you see him? said he. Who said I. "The man that took it,' said he. "What?" said I. Your head of cabbage,' said he. And faith I looked about, and sure enough I found me head of cabbage among the missing, and there it was, lying quiet and aisy as a pig in a pool of a hot day, in the bottom of his basket."

"Then you swear he stole your head of cabbage," said the Recorder.

Mary.-"Troth I do, Recorder jewel, for there wasn't a mother's sowl prisint but himself and meself, bar'n the childer, and they was at home, the craythers, sleeping sound and aisy." Any questions to ask this woman?" said the Recorder to the defendant.

66

66 May it please the court," said a young lawyer, "I am counsel for the defendant in this case; I have some questions to ask the witness. (Addressing Mary.) You state, madam, the prisoner stole your head of cabbage.-Now what could have been his motive for committing so petty a theft?"

Mrs. M'Gloin.-" Faix that's more than I know. I suppose he thought two heads would be betther than one, any day. Don't you thing so yourself?"

Lawyer." No impertinence, madam."

Mrs. M'Gloin. "O, jist as you like, sir, suit yourself, it's all the same to me." ""

Lawyer." Now, madam, you say he stole your head of cabbage. Will you swear that you know what a head of cabbage is? and that you know the genus of plants to which it belongs? The court will at once see the necessity of the witness' being explicit on this point, because she cannot swear that which she lost is a cabbage unless she is acquainted with its physiology. Now, Linnæus divides all solid plants into two distinct classes or kinds-the 'Cellular' and the "Vascular ;' and these again, he subdivided into the Gryptogamous' and the Monocotyledonous,' and the latter he calls endogenous. Now, madam, after this will you pretend to swear that you

have an accurate knowledge of a head of cabbage, or that you actually know what it is?"

Mrs. M'Gloin" O, holy St. Bridget, this man is out of his sinses. So, Mr. Lawyer, you say, I don't know what a head of cabbage is? And I suppose you'll be afther saying I can't till the difference betune a head of cabbage and a cabbage head? In troth then it's altogether aysier than you think it is, for, by way of explanation, as Bill Dolin used to say when he'd describe the streets of Dublin by making lines with a kippeen in the ashes-your head may be called a cabbage head, but I defy you with all your larnin' to prove that because it's a cabbage head it must be a head of cabbage !"

The young lawyer claimed the protection of the court from such inuendoes and insinuations. "Every man," he said, "at some time of his life felt a penchant for cabbage, and the subject should not be treated with such levity. The journeyman tailor cabbaged his cloth, and the Ex-president cultivated his cabbage, and

Here the Recorder abruptly put a period to his speech, by telling him he could not sit and listen to a lecture on the cultivation of vegetables. He ordered the Dutchman to pay the costs of court, and to pay Mrs. M'Gloin for her head of cabbage, and so he dismissed the case.

JACK ROBINSON.

A SALT WHO WAS FRESH.

JACK ROBINSON, a tarpaulin-faced, tempest-tossed mariner, wearing large canvass trousers, a blue jacket with white pearl buttons in close column and double file, and a small sized glazed hat, was one of the prisoners before Recorder Baldwin yesterday. His hair was like a deck mop, his forehead like a companion ladder, his nose like a quadrant, his eyes like a pair of revolving lights seen in the distance, and his mouth was like the large end of a speaking trumpet. His left cheek was distended out in a conical shape, the effect of an enormous quid of tobacco that was stowed away inside.

The watchman boarded him in Gravier street.-His rudder was broken and he had lost his compass, or what was about the same thing, if he had one he was not able to use it. He