“‘Ass and Umm Amr’ went their way,
  Nor she nor ass returned for aye.’

Thereupon I knew that she was dead, and mourned for her.  This was three days ago, and I have been mourning ever since.”  So I left him and fared forth, having assured myself of the weakness of the gerund-grinder’s wit[2].

Here, surely, was the very Father of Folly, but what shall we say of judges and magistrates being sometimes (represented as) equally witless?  Thus we are told, among the cases decided by a Turkish Kazi, that two men came before him one of whom complained that the other had almost bit his ear off.  The accused denied this, and declared that the fellow had bit his own ear.  After pondering the matter for some time, the judge told them to come again two hours later.  Then he went into his private room, and attempted to bring his ear and his mouth together; but all he did was to fall backwards and break his head.  Wrapping a cloth round his head, he returned to court, and the two men coming in again presently, he thus decided the question:  “No man can bite his own ear, but in trying to do so he may fall down and break his head.”

A Sinhalese story, which is also well known in various forms in India, furnishes a still more remarkable example of forensic sagacity.  It is thus related by the able editor of The Orientalist, vol. i., p. 191: 

One night some thieves broke into the house of a rich man, and carried away all his valuables.  The man complained to the justice of the peace, who had the robbers captured, and when brought before him, inquired of them whether they had anything to say in their defence.  “Sir,” said they, “we are not to blame in this matter; the robbery was entirely due to the mason who built the house; for the walls were so badly made, and gave way so easily, that we were quite unable to resist the temptation of breaking in.”  Orders were then given to bring the mason to the court-house.  On his arrival he was informed of the charge brought against him.  “Ah,” said he, “the fault is not mine, but that of the coolie, who made mortar badly.”  When the coolie was brought, he laid the blame on the potter, who, he said, had sold him a cracked chattie, in which he could not carry sufficient water to mix the mortar properly.  Then the potter was brought before the judge, and he explained that the blame should not be laid upon him, but upon a very pretty woman, who, in a beautiful dress, was passing at the time he was making the chattie, and had so riveted his attention, that he forgot all about the work.  When the woman appeared, she protested that the fault was not hers, for she would not have been in that neighbourhood at all had the goldsmith sent home her earrings at the proper time; the charge, she argued, should properly be brought against him.  The goldsmith was brought, and as he was unable to offer any reasonable excuse, he was condemned to be hanged.  Those in the court, however,