Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1893 — Had a Joke on the Lawyer. [ARTICLE]

Had a Joke on the Lawyer.

When Cardinal Gibbon was bishop of Richmond, Va., he happened to be the defendant in relation to some church property. When called to the witness stand the plaintiffs lawyer, a distinguished legal luminary, after vain endeavors to involve the witness in contradictions, struck upon a plan which he thought would anno} the bishop, tie thereupon questioned the right of Dr. Gibbons to the title of Bishop of Richmond, and called on him to prove his claim to the office. The defendant’s counsel,, of course, objected to this as irrelevant; but the bishop, with a quiet smile, said he would comply with the request if allowed half an hour to produce the necessary papers. This being allowed, the bishop left the court-room and returned in twenty minutes with a document which he proceeded to read with great solemnity, all the more solemn as the paper was in Latin. The plaintiff’s lawyer pretended to take notes, industriously bowing his head once in awhile as if in acquiescence, and seeming perfectly convinced at the end. When the reading was finished he announced that the papal’ bulls just read were perfectly satisfactory, at the same time apologizing for his expressed doubts. The next day, says the Halifax (N. S.) Mail, it leaked out that the bishop, unable to find the papal bull at his residence, had brought to the court and read a Latin essay on “Pope Leo the Great,” written by an ecclesiastical student and forwarded by the President of tho college as a specimen of the young man’s skill in Latin composition. The smart lawyer never heard the last of it.