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teen or sixteen, I first read the play, and I imagine its incongruity strikes every reader at once. Later on in life I set it down as another instance of the failure of the cleverest men (not themselves lawyers) to introduce a law suit into fiction without violating the common rules of procedure. To make the situation dramatic, they invariably make it impossible. I concluded that the failure of others might be excused, when even Shakspere missed it. Subsequent experience convinced me, however, that he did not miss it, after all. This is how it happened:

In 1851-52, I passed several months in the neighboring republic of Nicaragua. It was at that time, perhaps, the least known and least frequented of the Spanish-American States. Originally explored and colonized by an expedition from Panama, its communications with Europe and all the outer world were maintained, almost wholly, from the Pacific side of the continent; its commerce was insignificant, travel never reached it, and it had probably kept up the customs and practices in vogue under the Spanish rule with less variation than any of the colonies. The affairs of the company I represented having become considerably entangled by the transactions and omissions of a former agent, I found myself, ere long, involved in half a dozen law suits, the proceedings of which gave me a new light on the Shylock case. To explain this, I will briefly relate what occurred in the first of them. The course of the others was similar.

Business having brought me to the City of Granada, I was one day accosted on the street by a dapper little man, carrying an ivory-headed cane, who, calling me by name, said: "El alcalde le llama,”—“The alcalde sends for you." I thought the invitation rather wanting in courtesy, and to pay like with like, intimated that I was busy then, without saying whether I would wait on his Honor or not. The little man simply repeated his message and left. A person present, seeing that I showed no disposition to move, then informed me that the dapper little man with the cane was an alguazil, and that, by his verbal notice, I had been legally sum

moned to the alcalde's court, to which I was recommended to go without unnecessary delay. I accordingly repaired at once to the court room in the juzgado, as directed.

Proceedings of some sort were going on at the moment, but the alcalde suspended them, received me very courteously, and directed some one present to go and call Don Dolores Bermudez, the plaintiff, into court. The substance of Mr. Bermudez's complaint against the company was then stated to me, and I was asked for my answer to it. I sent for my counsel, and the company's defense was stated orally. The contract out of which the controversy arose was produced, and perhaps a witness or two examined, and some oral discussion followed; those details I forget, for there was nothing in them that struck me as strange. There was, in fact, little, if any, dispute about the facts of the case, the real controversy being as to the company's liability and its extent. We were finally informed that on a given day we should be expected to attend again, when the Judge would be prepared with his decision.

At the appointed time we attended accordingly, and the Judge read a paper in which all the facts were stated, at the conclusion of which he announced to us that he proposed to submit the question of law involved to Don Buenaventura Selva, a practicing lawyer of Granada, as a "jurisconsult," unless some competent objections were made to him. I learned, then, that I could challenge the proposed jurisconsult for consanguinity, affinity, or favor, just as we challenge a juror. I knew of no cause of challenge against him; my counsel said he was an unexceptionable person; and so he was chosen, and the case was referred to him. Some days after, he returned the papers to the alcalde with his opinion, which was in my favor, and the plaintiff's case was dismissed.

In the course of the same afternoon, or next day, I received an intimation that Don Buenaventura expected from me a gratification-the name in that country for what we call a gratuity-and I think the sum of two hundred dollars was named. This did not harmonize with my crude notions of the ad

ministration of justice, and I asked for explanations. They were giyen in the stereotyped form used to explain every other anomaly in that queer country, "Costumbre del pais." I thought it a custom more honored in the breach than the observance, and declined to pay. I found out afterwards, however, that this was a mistake; that under their system of administration the Judge merely ascertains the facts, and as to the law and its application to the case, reference is had to a jurisconsult, or doctor of the law; and that he, after pronouncing his decision, is entitled to accept from either party-in practice always from the successful one—a "quiddam honorarium," or gratification, his service to the court being gratuitous, just as that of an amicus curia is with us.

ence.

With this experience, I read the case of Shylock over again, and understood it better. It was plain the sort of procedure Shakspere had in view, and attributed to the Venetian court, was exactly that of my recent experiThe trial scene in the "Merchant of Venice" opens on the day appointed for hearing judgment; the facts had been ascertained at a previous session, and Bellario had been selected as the jurist to determine the law applicable to them. The case had been submitted to him in writing, and the Court was awaiting his decision. The defendant, when the case is called, answers, as is done daily in our own courts: "Ready, so please your Grace." Shylock is not present. In a common law court, his absence would have resulted in a nonsuit, but not so here; he is sent for, just as my adversary was, and comes. After an ineffectual attempt to move him to mercy, the Duke intimates an adjournment, unless Bellario comes, and it is then announced that a messenger from him is in attendance: his letter is read, and Portia is introduced. Bellario's letter excuses his non-attendance on a plea of illness, and proposes her, under the name of Balthasar, as a substitute. "I acquainted him with the cause in controversy, be

tween the Jew and Antonio, the merchant; we turned o'er many books together; he is furnished with my opinion, which, bettered with his own learning, the greatness whereof I cannot enough commend, comes with him at my importunity to fill up your Grace's request in my stead. . . . I leave him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish his commendation." The Duke, of course, had the right so far as concerned himself to accept the substitution of Balthasar for Bellario; but Shylock, I take it, would have had his right to challenge the substitute, and perhaps it is to avoid this, by disarming his suspicions, that all Portia's utterances in the case, until she has secured his express consent to her acting, are favorable to him. Thus,

"Of a strange nature is the suit you follow, Yet in such rule that the Venetian law Cannot impugn you as you do proceed"; and again, after her splendid plea for mercy : "I have spoken thus much,

To mitigate the justice of thy plea,
Which, if thou follow, this strict Court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant here."

Shylock would have been mad to object to a judge whose intimations were so clearly in his favor. He first pronounces her "A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel!" This does not, however, amount to an express acceptance of her as a substitute; it is but an expression of high respect, consistent, however, with a refusal to consent to the proposed substitution. She carries the deception still further, pronounces the bond forfeit, and that

"Lawfully, by this the Jew may claim
A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off
Nearest the merchant's heart,"

and again pleads for mercy.

The poor Jew, completely entrapped, then "charges her by the law to proceed to judgment." Antonio does the same, and both parties having thus in open court accepted her as such, she is fairly installed as the Judex substitutus for Bellario, and almost immediately afterwards suggests the quibble over the 1. And the plaintiff being called, comes not, but makes default," is the exact form of the entry on the roll drop of blood and the just one pound of

in a common law judgment of nonsuit.

flesh, on which Antonio escapes.

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Antonio, gratify this gentleman,

For, in my mind, you are much bound to him."

That is, give him a gratification, or honorarium; and Bassanio offers her the three thousand ducats which were the condition of the bond.

To complete the parallel to my Nicaragua the depositions of witnesses, relating among experience above recounted, we find, after other circumstances the finding of a revolv the trial is over, and the poor discomfited er under the body of the deceased when he Jew has retired from the court, the Duke was raised from the floor, after the fatal ensays to the defendant, whose life has been counter. The survivor's version of the ocsaved by Fortia's subtlety, currence was that the deceased had drawn a pistol on him, which went off in the struggle for its possession, and killed its owner. The alcalde conducted the trial with pretty evident partiality to the survivor, whom, at the conclusion of it, he acquitted. A sister of the deceased, by her attorney, then petitioned to be allowed to intervene and appeal from the judgment. Decided that her relationship is not sufficiently proved, and her petition is denied. Then the fiscal, on behalf of the State, intervenes, and appeals to the Supreme Court. There the witnesses are reexamined, and on a suggestion of collusion between two of them, on whose testimony the defendant relied, are examined separately. They contradict each other badly, and break down. Then a suggestion appears to have been made that the pistol found under the deceased's body was not his own, but another's. His had an ivory handle, this a wooden one, etc. The alcalde is summoned to produce the pistol, which as a pièce de conviction had remained in his possession. He answers that after the conclusion of the trial before him, thinking there was no further use for it, he had sold it for $2.00 to a man who was going to Chihuahua, and who had not since been seen. judgment below is then reversed, the defendant sentenced to death, and the alcalde before whom the trial had been had below, is sentenced to a fine of $100 for his partiality and misconduct.

One difficulty yet remained in the case, which the above explanation did not touch, and which to me was still a stumbling block, viz: In the play the action is promoted by Shylock to enforce against Antonio the pen alty of his bond; it concludes with a judgment against the plaintiff that his estate be forfeited, one half to the commonwealth, the other to the defendant, and that his life lie at the mercy of the Duke. Justice, perhaps, but excessively raw justice, such as we would think could only be meted out in the court of the Turkish cadi, who fines the plaintiff, imprisons the defendant, and bastinadoes the witnesses. Yet a few years since, I met with a case in a Mexican court, involving just as marked a departure from all our notions of the proper course of justice as this. A question arose in this city, as to the disposition of the estate of a gentleman who died at Mazatlan, where he had been slain in an encounter with his partner, while discussing in anger the state of their accounts. There had been a trial over the case in Mexico. The surviving partner put forward claims before our court, which caused me, on behalf of next of kin of the deceased, to send to Mexico for a complete transcript of the judgment record there. I have it now in my office, all duly certified, and a curious document it is. It begins with an official inquiry by the alcalde, as to the cause of death; something like our coroner's inquest. After the preliminary in quiry, the surviving partner is called upon to answer a charge of homicide; then follow

The

After reading this record, it occurred to me that in a court proceeding according to such methods as these, a judgment against the plaintiff of forfeiture of life and goods might be supposed, even in an action on a bond, without grossly violating probability; and it seems to me that Shakspere was acquainted (however he acquired the knowledge) with the modes of procedure in tribunals administering the law of Spain, as well

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UNFREQUENTED PATHS OF YOSEMITE.

IN May and June Yosemite is at its best, but many of the most rewarding views, remote from the regular travel, can be enjoyed in the later months. From San Francisco the routes of travel are three: the "Berenda" (succeeding the "Madera"), via Berenda, Raymond, Big Trees, and Inspiration Point; the "Big Oak Flat," via Stockton and Milton; and the "Coulterville," used by private conveyances. The first is tedious, but the favorite, on account of its superiority in features of interest; the second is most comfortable, and characteristic of California; the Coulterville road is a good and solitary

one.

A week is usually devoted to Yosemite; two days' journey each way, and two days in the valley. Mirror Lake, Union and Glacier Points, and Sentinel Dome occupy the first; Snow's, Nevada and Vernal Falls, Cataract of Diamonds, Emerald Pool, Liberty Cap, and Mt. Broderick, the second. Nor does this require special exertion, as, without mounting a horse or experiencing more than a trifle of discomfort, all the celebrated features of Yosemite can be enjoyed from a carriage. The ride on the northern bank of the Merced River affords excellent views of El Capitan, Three Brothers, Yosemite Falls, the Cemetery, Royal Arches, and North Dome. At the end of the road is Mirror Lake; beyond are Washington Column and Cloud's Rest; while to the right is the shattered height of Half Dome. Crossing Tenaya Creek, continuing by the base of Half Dome and along the Anderson road to its end, the landscape presents Vernal and Nevada Falls, with Glacier Point to the right. Crossing the Merced and returning down the valley are successively seen Glacier Point, Sentinel Rock, Cathedral Spires and Rocks, and Bridal Veil Falls. Farther on, past In spiration Point, a road branching off to the left leads to Glacier Point, where the great est glories of Yosemite are revealed.

does even the Higher Sierra refuse itself to the indolent and infirm; for the "Mono carriage road affords excellent views of Lake Tenaya, Cathedral Peaks, Tuolumne Meadows, Mount Gibbs, the great base of Dana, with its vociferous stream, and the numerous peaks thence to Tioga and Mono Plain.

For equestrians there are three trails, all free, namely: Glacier Point, Cloud's Rest (passing by Snow's), and Eagle Peak. Α comparatively small number take the solitary bridle-path on the northern side of the valley, by the triple Yosemite Falls, to Eagle Peak (the highest point of Three Brothers), where, from an elevation of three thousand eight hundred and thirty feet, the entire Merced Cañon is exposed to view, and Nevada Falls, half hid behind Grizzly Peak. go to Little Yosemite and the Fissures; and fewer still to Half Dome and the highest peak of Sentinel Rock. Among the latter have been two ladies, one of whom, more daring than discreet, climbed out on the rock which juts from the main precipice of Glacier Point, to its uttermost verge, and there sat, her feet resting on nothing but the immense chasm.

The journeys hereinafter described are along paths still less trodden. Although found or made by the writer, they, it is believed, afford each a good reason for general adoption, and I have tried to describe them with such clearness that the wayfarer can easily traverse them without other guide than this and the marks in loco.

If the reader, any time when he is in the valley, will (opposite Leidig's) take the Eagle Peak Trail past Columbia Rock to the broad ledge, he will get, in my opinion, the only just picture of the Middle Yosemite Falls in its rocky trench. The ledge where he stands breaks the first and longest plunge (1,600 feet) of the Yosemite Creek. Thence crossNor ing over the abundant debris, the passage

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