Gowns of Supreme Court Judges

1920

When, soon after the Declaration of Independence, the United States Supreme court was formed, some of its members wanted to adopt the costume worn in America by judges of colonial days. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the draft of the Declaration of Independence, effectively squelched this suggestion. "For heaven's sake," he said, "discard the monstrous wig which makes the English judges look like rats peeping through bunches of oakum!"

Other suggestions — such as the garb of a Roman senator, flowing robes with a mortarboard cap, and so on — were also rejected, and it was eventually decided that the judges should wear short gowns of black silk. These they still wear.


Magpie Pet of Public

The magpie in Kensington gardens has many friends who attend his daily levee. One of so tender a heart that she conceals chicken bones in her muff for his delight was told that an offering of meal worms would prove irresistible.

She sought this delicacy, but only to learn that it is now unobtainable. For meal worms, as an article of bird fare, came from Germany.

Most of us will bear with equanimity the disappearance of this strangest of Hunnish trades. To the authorities of the zoological gardens, however, the problem of meal-worm production is said to be a weighty one still unsolved. — London Chronicle.

Supreme Court Unable To Classify Ouija Boards

1922

CANNOT PASS ON OUIJA BOARD

Supreme Court Admits Inability to Classify It.

WASHINGTON, June 5.—The Supreme Court today announced it would not determine what is a ouija board. The question was presented in a case brought by the Baltimore Talking Board company, which protested against taxation of such boards as sporting goods and insisted that should the court refuse to hold that the board "is a grade motor automatism, involving considerable subconscious action of intelligence," that it should at least classify the smaller boards as "children's toys."

The lower federal courts sustained the government's contention that the boards should be classed as sporting goods.

—The Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln, Nebraska, June 6, 1922, page 1.