Temple University School of Law - Restatement Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

Page 115 text:

HUMOR

Page 117 text:

ie Hatoper (A Philosophic Phable) NCE upon a time there was a Dickeybird whom Destiny and a fond papa decreed should he an attorney. From the day that he kicked his nurse loose from her upper plate it was all doped out that he should wrestle with the intricacies of Blackstone. Even as an infant his nocturnal yodels, the kind that would arouse the envy of a Swiss mountain climber, were considered as an indication that he would be a howling success. As a school boy, his arguments with the teachers, who were always wrong, the variety of black eyes that he sported, and the frequency with which he was knocked for a row of marble vistas, put him down as a fighter. Before he reached his teens, Willie for such was the name on his report-card—had a strange penchant for chasing fire-engines and hopping on the backs of ambulances. His patrol wagon rides, however, were usually by invitation. But he was the pride of his old man, and the chief topic of conversation of the Mater-familias, not only his own, but every other one in the neighborhood. The boy’s heritage was well suited to his future leanings, for it was not long before he carried a Gladstone bag, surreptitiously smoked Blackstone cigars, and became a good Judge of forbidden fruit in the liquified form. His pre-legal knowledge was further augmented by reading the so-called “true-fiction” magazines and digesting all the current cases as reported in the scandal sheets. The Guy was exclusive, too, as none of the neighbor’s kids had anything to do with him; but he was well satisfied, as their views were so Plebian, for to revert to the common vernacular of the Proletariat, Willie “high-hatted” them. By the governor making his everyday suit do duty on Sundays also, and his mother doing her own washing, the Young Hopeful’s folks saved enough to send him to college, where he succeeded in doing a four-year course in seven years flat. And then came the great day that he was to enter Law School! In order to get the proper apperceptive basis, as he called it (whatever that is), he decided to spend his spare time hanging around a law office rather than trying to earn a little money toward paying his expenses. This Bird believed in being thorough, just so long as it was out of somebody else’s bank account. It was all figured out, when he was made a member of the Bar he would remedy many of the existing defects of our legal system. In fact, he wrote an article for the school publication, entitled. “Oh Law, What Crimes Are Committed in Thy Name.”