Charles Dickens on Law

“I know'd what 'ud come o' this here mode o' doin' business. Oh, Sammy, Sammy, vy worn't there a alleybi!”

“Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving — HOW NOT TO DO IT.”

“"If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, "the law is a ass, a idiot." If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience".”

“There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant operation, but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally attainable by all men, without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets.”

“If it's near dinner time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury have retired and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else except two men who ought to have dined at three, and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch: "Well, gentlemen, what do we say? Plaintiff, defendant, gentlemen? I rather think so far as I am concerned, gentlemen — I say I rather think — but don't let that influence you — I rather think the plaintiff's the man." Upon this two or three other men are sure to say they think so too — as of course they do; and then they get on very unanimously and comfortably.”