The Crime

"Cessante ratione, cessat ipsa lex" is a learned and Latin way of saying that when the reason for a law ceases to exist, the law itself dies with it. And to a distinguished professor up at the Law School, this little tag strikes at the very root of the legal system. In fact, it is reliably reported that this jurist injects the quotation at least four times into each of the profound and erudite dissertations he hurls at his disciples Mondays through Thursdays.

But not on Fridays and Saturdays. On those days, when there are always from one to twenty beautiful girls in the back of the hall, getting in shape for football or other athletic events, he indulges in brilliant cross-examination of his self-conscious wards. On Monday he is back at the Latin.

On a recent Monday, however, the man of law delivered himself of a monologue that was at once scintillating and side-splitting, leaving his class a little puzzled till they found the reason, an anonymous poem left on the professor's desk just before the lecture:

L-- is quite a ladies' man;

He's always at his best

When at the back of Langdell South

There sits a female guest.

But he certainly isn't up to par

When the class is all one sex:

Cessante ratione,

Cessat ipsa lex.