detainers, declarations, traverses in prox, and alibis, with sundry hints
for qui tam processes, interspersed, occasionally, with sly jokes about
packing juries and confusing witnesses, among which figured the usual
number of good things attributed to the Chief Baron O'Grady and the other
sayers of smart sayings at the bar.

"Ah!" said Mr. Daly, drawing a deep sigh at the same instant--"the bar is
sadly fallen off since I was called in the year seventy-six. There was
not a leader in one of the circuits at that time that couldn't puzzle
any jury that ever sat in a box; and as for driving through an act of
parliament, it was, as Sancho Panza says, cakes and gingerbread to them.
And then, there is one especial talent lost for ever to the present
generation--just like stained glass and illuminated manuscripts, and slow
poisons and the like--that were all known years ago--I mean the beautiful
art of addressing the judge before the jury, and not letting them know
you were quizzing them, if ye liked to do that same. Poor Peter Purcell
for that--rest his ashes--he could cheat the devil himself, if he had
need--and maybe he has had before now, Peter is sixteen years dead last
November."

"And what was Peter's peculiar tact in that respect, Mr. Daly?" said I.

"Oh, then I might try for hours to explain it to you in vain; but
I'll just give you an instance that'll show you better than all my
dissertations on the subject, and I was present myself when it happened,
more by token, it was the first time I ever met him on circuit;--"

"I suppose there is scarcely any one here now, except myself, that
remembers the great cause of Mills versus Mulcahy, a widow and others,
that was tried in Ennis, in the year '82. It's no matter if there is