_post mortem_ examination, and thereby doubled the doctor's ordinary fee. The coroner and his associate were convicted of conspiring to defraud, and consequently were deprived of their functions. It must be acknowledged that, if their mode of procuring inquests was not honest, it was certainly novel and ingenious. If the practice had been known in the days of Hamlet, it would have furnished an additional reason for his exclamation:-- "To what base uses we may return, Horatio." In the year 1842, and for several subsequent years, by an arrangement with my colleagues, I undertook the magisterial duties connected with the licensing and regulation of job and hackney vehicles, and the adjudication of complaints in the carriage court. At the time when I assumed those duties, Richard Wilson Greene (whose high legal acquirements ultimately obtained for him the position of Baron in the Court of Exchequer) was in very extensive practice at the Bar. An issue from Chancery was sent to be tried at one of the principal towns on the Leinster Circuit, and he was specially retained for one of the parties. A very efficient reporter, named Christopher Hughes, in whose character there was great comical eccentricity, was employed to take down, in shorthand, the trial of the issue. Early in the succeeding term, it was arranged that a consultation should be held at the house of the senior counsel, in Leeson Street, and Mr. Hughes was requested to meet Mr. Greene at the Courts, with his notes, and to accompany him to the consultation. The appointed time had nearly arrived, when Greene and Hughes hurried off from the Four Courts. Having passed out to the quay, the former hailed an outside car, on which they sat beside each other, and the driver was ordered to make all possible haste to Leeson Street. The horse was a fine-looking animal, but he stepped high and was very slow. Mr. Greene urged the driver to hasten on, and after two or three expostulations, he remarked to the Jehu that the horse was unfit for a jaunting car, although he was large and strong, but that he would suit well for a family carriage. The driver, a lad of eighteen or nineteen years of age, exclaimed, "Bedad your honor is a witch!" "What do you mean?" asked Mr. Greene. "Oh," replied the carman, "I mane no offince, but yer honor is right about the baste; that's what he is. I'll tell yer honor a saycret. The baste is a carriage horse belonging to one Counsellor Greene, and the coachman has a hack-car and figure on Bride Street stand. He ginerally manages to have something the matther with one of the horses, and that gives him an opportunity to get a good deal of work out of the other in the car." Although Mr. Greene was very angry at what the driver had communicated, he did not disclose that he was the owner of the horse. He whispered to Hughes, and requested him to give the driver his name and address, but to leave him unpaid. When they