An excellent anecdote, illustrative of the advantages of knowing some thing of every thing, is given on a trial at Carlisle. Bearcroft, a celebrated advocate, was brought down on a special retainer of three hundred guineas, in a salmon fishery cause. Scott led on the other side; and at a consultation held the evening before, it was determined to perplex Bearcroft, by examining all the witnesses in the dialect of Cumberland, and, as it appears, in the _patois_ of the fishermen. Accordingly, when Scott began to cross-examine his first witness, who said a good deal out the salmon good and bad, he asked whether they were obliged to make _ould soldiers_ of any of them. Bearcroft asked for an explanation of the words, which Scott would not give him. He then asked the judge, who answered that he did not know. After a squabble, the phrase was explained; but nearly every other question produced a similar scene. The jury were astonished that neither judge nor Bearcroft understood what they all understood so well, and they inferred from Bearcroft's ignorance that he had a rotten cause. The consequence was, that Bearcroft lost the cause; and he swore that no fee should ever tempt him to come among such a set of barbarians as the Cumberland men again. An _ould soldier_ is made by hanging up in a chimney a salmon caught out of season, when the fish is white instead of red, and it acquires by hanging the colour of an old red coat. Cross-examination may sometimes produce peril to the performer. At the assizes, Scott once examined a barber severely. The barber got into a great passion, and Scott desired him to moderate his anger, and that he should employ him to shave him as he passed through Kendal to the Lancaster assizes. 'The barber said, with great indignation, "I would not advise you, lawyer, to think of that, or risk it."