Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1888 — A STREAK OF HUMOR. [ARTICLE]

A STREAK OF HUMOR.

That August Tribunal, the U. S. Supreme Court, Ei joys Itself. The usual grave demeanor of the U. S. Supreme Cou/t was upset, Thursday, by the manner in which the audacious ex-Congressman from Virginia, John S. Wise, now a resident of New York City, argued a case of infringement of a patent. One after another the dignified judges relaxed into half-suppressed laughter, and the bar and audience indulged in as much mirth as is ever permissible within the precincts of that august tribunal.

The case at the bar was an appeal from the U. 8. District Court at Richmond, against a manufaturer of men’s drawers for infringement of a_.patent for re-inforcement of the seat and crotch. Mr. Wise read the opinion of Judge Hughes of the District Court, and commented upon it in a laughable way. Judge Hughes remarked in his opinion, “It strikes me that a patent for a patch upon drawers designed to Yemedy the evil of rip and tears, to which they are liable in the crotch, ought never to have been granted, interfering^as it must necessarily do, with the prerogatives of the housewives of the civilized world to patch the drawers of their husbands, fathers and sons freely in their own way, with no patentee to’ molest or make them afraid. It seems to me that this patent is the reductio ad absurdum of the patent system of the United States. It is impossible that the patch can be novel as to the simple matter of strengthening the seams and the material of the drawers in the immediate region of the crotch; for if drawers do continually give way there it would be a reflection upon the housewives of civilized society not to admit that for hundreds of years they have been patching garments and the forks thereof, as the patent reads, by lapping the seams and re-enforcing the rents in that region. As to the disorders of men’s drawers in and near the crotch, which have troubled housewives for centuries, !do not think any person in our day can employ a patch for thepurpose of preventing or curing them that can have any real novelty.” In arguing the case counsel for the patentee said the value of the drawers was so increased by being “re-enforced” that one pair was equal to two. Among other amusing things said by Mr. Wise, in reply, was that this could not be true because it waa-well known every where that “two pair beats one” and this was the only game where a “split” counted against a dealer. ,The The evident appreciation of .these and similar references to the fashionable games of cards, seemed to imply a Silty knowledge on the part of the irned justices that vas as aipusipg to the bar and spectators as the witticisms of the counsel were tQ the judges themselves.