Dry the starting tear

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Sep 12, 2003

From yesterday's Boston Herald:

Attorneys in the Catholic Church sexual abuse settlement yesterday defended their one-third share of the $85 million accord, saying their "lawyers' payday" is diluted by the enormous cost of suing the Archdiocese of Boston. "We have had as many as 20 people at one time working on these cases," said Roderick MacLeish Jr., an attorney with the law firm of Greenberg Traurig. "No one did this for charitable purposes, but we certainly didn't make money on it," he said. The firm's team scanned 55,000 pages of documents onto computers in one year alone, he said, and filed more than 40 legal briefs -- some as long as 200 pages. "This takes years off your life," he said. "No one does it for the money. Using the most conservative and realistic calculations, we actually lose money on this."

From W.S. Gilbert's Bab Ballads (1869):

The Ballyshannon foundered off the coast of Cariboo
Down in fathoms many went the captain and the crew.
Down went the owners -- greedy men, whom hope of gain allured.
O dry the starting tear! for they were heavily insured.