Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[75] easily convince me that I ought to have some. But the tuition that I had got from my friend, Judge Locke, was too much for him. That part of the law I knew better than some gentlemen who had been in practice for years.

I remember that among the questions he asked was this: “If you had a deed to prove in court where both the maker and the subscribing witness were dead, how would you prove it?”

I answered him at once: “By calling somebody who knew the handwriting of the subscribing witness and proving his hand-writing.”

He said to me: “Why not prove the handwriting of the maker?”

“Because the subscribing witness,” was my reply, “was called by the parties as a sort of attestor, and, therefore, we prove the signature of the subscribing witness and not the maker's.”

He continued that kind of examination which related to the practice in courts, saying to me that that was a thing I should feel myself most in need of. This continued for a very long space of time, it seemed to me, but I suppose about the space of an hour.

He then put me this question: “I see you have always been in court while I have been here holding session, apparently attending to the cases as they go on. Do you understand the proceedings?”

“I try to do so, sir, and I think I do understand some of them at least.”

“Well,” he said, “we sat a little later than usual to-night, and I observed that you remained there until the case was finished.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Will you state to me, in your own way, what that case was, and the points raised, and the ruling of the court?”

I answered: “That case was a suit brought by the indorsee of a promissory note against the maker. The defence was that the maker was an infant, i. e., under twenty-one years of age, when he made it. The answer to that was that after he became twenty-one years of age, when it was presented to him he had promised to pay the note. The reply to that was that the promise was after the indorsement, and although the note was negotiable, it did not pass to the indorsee.”

He said: “You have stated the case with correctness; I so ruled.”