THE STORY OF THE THREE MEN AND THEIR BAG OF MONEY

Lord Campbell, in his *Lives of the Chancellors*, relates, in connection with Queen Elizabeth's Lord Keeper Ellesmere, a very common story, of which I am surprised he did not at once discern the falsehood. It is that of a widow, who having a sum of money entrusted to her by three men, which she was on no account to return except to the joint demand of the three, is afterwards artfully persuaded by one of them to give it up to him. Being afterwards sued by the other two, she is successfully defended by a young lawyer, who puts in the plea that she is not bound to give up the money at the demand…