Chapter 17

Several years since, Judge R., a native of Connecticut, was holding a court at Danville. A cause of considerable importance came on, and a Mr. D., then a lawyer of considerable eminence, and afterwards a member of Congress, who resided in a distant part of the State, was present to give it his personal supervision. In the course of Mr. D.'s argument, he let fall some profane language, for which he was promptly checked and reprimanded by the Judge. Mr. D., accustomed to unrestrained license of tongue, retorted with great asperity, and much harshness of language.

"Mr. Clerk," said the Judge coolly, "put down twenty dollars fine to Mr. D."

"By ----," said Mr. D.; "I'll never pay a cent of it under heaven, and I'll swear as much as I ----please."

"Put down another fine of twenty dollars, Mr. Clerk."

"I'll see the devil have your whole generation," rejoined Mr. D., "before my pockets shall be picked by a cursed Yankee interloper."

"Another twenty dollar fine, Mr. Clerk."

"You may put on as many fines as you please, Mr. Judge, but by ---- there's a difference between imposing and collecting, I reckon."

"Twenty dollars more, Mr. Clerk."

"Ha, ha!" laughed Mr. D. with some bitterness, "you are trifling with me, I see, Sir; but I can tell you I understand no such joking; and by ----, Sir, you will do well to make an end of it."

"Mr. Clerk," said the Judge with great composure, "add twenty dollars more to the fine, and hand the account to the Sheriff. Mr. D., the money must be paid immediately, or I shall commit you to prison."

The violence of the lawyer compelled the Judge to add another fine; and before night, the obstreperous barrister was swearing with all his might to the bare walls of the county jail. The session of the court was terminated, and the lawyer, seeing no prospect of escape through the mercy of the Judge, after a fortnight's residence in prison, paid his fine of a hundred and twenty dollars, and was released.

He now breathed nothing but vengeance.

"I'll teach the Yankee scoundrel," said he, "that a member of the Kentucky bar is not to be treated in this manner with impunity."

The Judge held his next court at Frankfort, and thither Mr. D. repaired to take revenge for the personal indignity he had suffered. Judge R. is as remarkable for resolute fearlessness as for talents, firmness, and integrity; and after having provided himself with defensive weapons, entered upon the discharge of his duties with the most philosophic indifference. On passing from his hotel to the court-house, the Judge noticed that a man of great size, and evidently of tremendous muscular strength, followed him so closely as to allow no one to step between. He observed also that Mr. D., supported by three or four friends, followed hard upon the heels of the stranger, and on entering the court room, posted himself as near the seat of the Judge as possible--the stranger meantime taking care to interpose his huge body between the lawyer and the Judge. For two or three days, matters went on this way; the stranger sticking like a burr to the Judge, and the lawyer and his assistants keeping as near as possible, but refraining from violence. At length, the curiosity of Judge R. to learn something respecting the purposes of the modern Hercules became irrepressible, and he invited him to his room, and inquired who he was, and what object he had in view in watching his movements thus pertinaciously.

"Why, you see," said the stranger, ejecting a quid of tobacco that might have freighted a small skiff, "I'm a ringtailed roarer from Big Sandy River; I can outrun, outjump, and outfight any man in Kentucky. They telled me in Danville, that this 'ere lawyer was comin down to give you a lickin. Now I hadn't nothin agin that, only he wan't a goin to give you fair play, so I came here to see you out, and now if you'll only say the word, we can flog him and his mates, in the twinkling of a quart pot."

Mr. D. soon learned the feeling in which the champion regarded him, and withdrew without attempting to execute his threats of vengeance upon the Judge.

JUDGE PETERS.

ON his entrance into Philadelphia, General Lafayette was accompanied in the barouche by the venerable Judge Peters. The dust was somewhat troublesome, and from his advanced age, &c., the General felt and expressed some solicitude lest his companion should experience inconvenience from it. To which he replied: General you do not recollect that I am a JUDGE--I do not regard the DUST, I am accustomed to it. The lawyers throw dust in my eyes almost every day in the court-house."

WITTY APOLOGY.

A PHYSICIAN calling one day on a gentleman who had been severely afflicted with the gout, found, to his surprise, the disease gone, and the patient rejoicing in his recovery over a bottle of wine. "Come along, doctor," exclaimed the valetudinarian, "you are just in time to taste this bottle of Madeira; it is the first of a pipe that has just been broached." "Ah!" replied the doctor, "these pipes of Madeira will never do; they are the cause of all your suffering." "Well, then," rejoined the gay incurable, "fill up your glass, for now that we have found out the cause, the sooner we get rid of it the better."

BENEVOLENCE.

"TAKE a ticket, Sir, for the Widow and Orphans Fund of the Spike Society?" "Well, y-e-a-s!--don't care much though for the orphans, but _I goes in strong for the widows_!"

MRS. PARTINGTON ON EDUCATION.

MRS. PARTINGTON, after listening to the reading of an advertisement for a young ladies' boarding school, said:

"For my part, I can't deceive what on airth eddication is coming to. When I was young, if a girl only understood the rules of distraction, provision, multiplying, replenishing, and the common dominator, and knew all about the rivers and their obituaries, the covenants and domitories, the provinces and the umpires, they had eddication enough. But now they are to study bottomy, algierbay, and have to demonstrate supposition of sycophants of circuses, tangents and Diogenes and parallelogramy, to say nothing about the oxhides, corostics, and abstruse triangles!" Thus saying, the old lady leaned back in her chair, her knitting work fell in her lap, and for some minutes she seemed in meditation.

OBEYING ORDERS.

A CERTAIN General of the United States Army, supposing his favorite horse dead, ordered an Irishman to go and skin him.

"What! is Silver Tail dead?" asked Pat.

"What is that to you?" said the officer, "do as I bid you, and ask me no questions."

Pat went about his business, and in about two hours returned.

"Well, Pat, where have you been all this time?" asked the general.

"Skinning your horse, your honor."

"Did it take you two hours to perform the operation?"

"No, your honor, but then you see it took me about half an hour to catch the horse."

"Catch him! Fires and furies--was he alive?"

"Yes, your honor, and I could not skin him alive, you know."

"Skin him alive! did you kill him?"

"To be sure I did, your honor--and sure you know I must obey orders without asking questions."

A REASON.

AS a nobleman was receiving from Louis XIII. the investiture of an Ecclesiastical Order, and was saying, as is usual on that occasion, _Domine, non sum dignus._--"Lord, I am not worthy." "I know that well enough," replied the king, "but I could not resist the importunity of my cousin Cardinal Richelieu, who pressed me to give it you."

CANVASSING.

AT an election, a candidate solicited a vote.

"I would rather vote for the devil than you," was the reply.

"But in case your friend is not a candidate," said the solicitor, "might I then count on your assistance?"

WIT OF AN IRISH JARVEY.

AN anecdote, illustrative of the wit of Irish "jarveys," is going the rounds in Dublin. Mr. ---- is a man of aldermanic proportions. He chartered an outside car, t'other day, at Island Bridge Barrack, and drove to the post-office. On arriving he tendered the driver sixpence, which was strictly the fare, though but scant remuneration for the distance. The jarvey saw at a glance the small coin, but in place of taking the money which Mr. ----held in his hands, he busied himself putting up the steps of the vehicle, and then, going to the well at the back of the car, took thence a piece of carpeting, from which he shook ostentatiously the dust, and straightway covered his horse's head with it. After doing so he took the "fare" from the passenger, who, surprised at the deliberation with which the jarvey had gone through the whole of these proceedings, inquired, "Why did you cover the horse's head?" To which the jarvey, with a humorous twinkle of his eye, and to the infinite amusement of approving bystanders, replied, "Why did I cover the horse's head? Is that what you want to know? Well, because I didn't want to let the dacent baste see that he carried so big a load so far for sixpence?" It should be added, in justice to the worthy citizen, that a half crown immediately rewarded the witty jarvey for his ready joke.

A CONSEQUENCE.

A GENTLEMAN complained that his apothecary had so stuffed him with drugs, that he was _sick_ for a fortnight after he was _quite well_.

A SEA CHAPLAIN.

THE captain of a man of war lost his chaplain. The first lieutenant, a Scotchman, announced his death to his lordship, adding he was sorry to inform him that the chaplain died a Roman Catholic. "Well, so much the better," said his lordship. "Oot awa, my lord, how can you say so of a _British clergyman_?" "_Why, because I believe I am the first captain that ever could boast of a chaplain who had any religion at all._"

THE MODEST BARRISTER.

A COUNSEL, examining a very young lady, who was a witness in a case of assault, asked her, if the person who was assaulted did not give the defendant very ill language, and utter words so bad that he, the learned counsel, had not _impudence_ enough to repeat? She replied in the affirmative. "Will you, Madam, be kind enough," said he, "to tell the Court what these words were?" "Why, Sir," replied she, "if _you_ have not _impudence_ enough to speak them, how can you suppose that _I_ have?"

A DISTINCTION.

A LADY came up one day to the keeper of the light-house near Plymouth, which is a great curiosity. "I want to see the light-house," said the lady. "It cannot be complied with," was the reply. "Do you know who I am, Sir?" "No, Madam." "I am the Captain's _lady_." "_If you were his wife, Madam, you could not see it without his order!_"

CONSEQUENCE.

A PRAGMATICAL fellow, who travelled for a mercantile house in town, entering an inn at Bristol, considered the traveling room beneath his dignity, and required to be shown to a private apartment; while he was taking refreshment, the good hostess and her maid were elsewhere discussing the point, as to what class their customer belonged. At length the bill was called for, and the charges declared to be enormous. "Sixpence for an egg! I never paid such a price since I traveled for the house!" "There!" exclaimed the girl, "I told my mistress I was sure, Sir, that you was no gentleman."

Another gentleman going into a tavern on the Strand, called for a glass of brandy and water, with an air of great consequence, and after drinking it off, inquired what was to pay? "Fifteen pence, Sir," said the waiter. "Fifteen pence! fellow, why that is downright imposition: call your master." The master appeared, and the guest was remonstrating, when "mine host" stopped him short, by saying, "Sir, fifteen pence is the price we charge to gentlemen; if any persons not entitled to that character trouble us, we take what they can afford, and are glad to get rid of them."

PROOF OF CIVILIZATION.

A PERSON who had resided some time on the coast of Africa, was asked if he thought it possible to civilize the natives? "As a proof of the possibility of it," said he, "I have known negroes who thought as little of a _lie_ or an _oath_ as any European whatever."

MAN AND BEAST.

"I AND Disraeli put up at the same tavern last night," said a dandified snob, the other day. "It must have been a house of accommodation then for man and beast," replied a bystander.

SATISFACTORY PROOF.

A NOBLE, but not a learned lord, having been suspected to be the author of a very severe but well written pamphlet against a gentleman high in office, he sent him a challenge. His lordship professed his innocence, assuring the gentleman that he was not the author; but the other would not be satisfied without a denial under his hand. My lord therefore took the pen and began, "_This is to scratify, that the buk called the ----_" "Oh, my lord!" said the gentleman, "I am perfectly satisfied that your lordship did not write the book."

LANGUAGES CHARACTERIZED.

CHARLES V., speaking of the different languages of Europe, thus described them: "The _French_ is the best language to speak to one's friend--the _Italian_ to one's mistress--the _English_ to the people--the _Spanish_ to God--and the _German_ to a horse."

CON. OF THE SILVER FORK SCHOOL.

WHY is a man eating soup with a fork like another kissing his sweetheart? Do you give it up?

Because it takes so long to get enough of it.

DOG-FANCYING; OR INJURED INNOCENCE.

BOB PICKERING, short, squat, and squinting, with a yellow "wipe" round his "squeeze," was put to the bar on violent suspicion of dog-stealing.

_Mr. Davis_, Silk-mercer, Dover-street, Piccadilly, said:--About an hour before he entered the office, while sitting in his parlor, he heard a loud barking noise, which he was convinced was made by a favorite little dog, his property. He went out, and in the passage caught the prisoner in the act of conveying it into the street in his arms.

_Mr. Dyer:_ What have you to say? You are charged with attempting to steal the dog.

_Prisoner:_ (_affecting a look of astonishment_)--Vot, me _steal_ a dog? Vy, I'm ready and villing to take my solomon hoth 'at I'm hinnocent of sitch an hadwenture. Here's the _factotal_ of the consarn as I'm a honest man. I vos a coming along Hoxfud-street, ven I seed this here poor dumb hanimal a running about vith not nobody arter him, and a looking jest as if he vas complete lost. Vhile I vos in this here sittivation, a perfect gentleman comes up to me, and says he, "Vot a cussed shame," says he, "that 'ere handsome young dog should be vithout a nateral pertectur! I'm blow'd, young man," says he, "if I vos you if I vouldn't pick it up and prewent the wehicles from a hurting on it; and," says he, "I'd adwise you, 'cause you looks so _werry honest_ and so werry respectable, to take pity on the poor dumb dog and go and buy it a ha'porth of wittles." Vell, my lord, you see I naterally complied vith his demand, and vos valking avay vith it for to look for a prime bit of _bowwow_ grub, ven up comes this here good gentleman, and vants to swear as how I vos arter _prigging_ on it!

_Mr. Dyer:_ How do you get your living?

_Prisoner:_ Vorks along vith my father and mother--and lives vith my relations wot's perticler respectable.

_Mr. Dyer:_ Policeman, do you know anything of the prisoner?

_Policeman:_ The prisoner's three brothers were transported last session, and his mother and father are now in Clerkenwell. The prisoner has been a dog-stealer for years.

_Prisoner:_ Take care vot you say--if you proves your vords, vy my carrecter vill be hingered, and I'm blowed if you shan't get a "little vun in" ven I comes out of _quod_.

_Mr. Dyer:_ What is the worth of the dog?

_Mr. Davis:_ It is worth five pounds, as it is of a valuable breed.

_Prisoner:_ There, your vership, you hear it's a waluable dog--now is it feasible as I should go for to prig a dog wot was a waluable hanimal?

The magistrate appeared to think such an occurrence not at all unlikely, as he committed him to prison for three months.

A SCOTCHMAN'S CONSOLATION.

A SCOTCHMAN who put up at an inn, was asked in the morning how he slept. "Troth, man," replied Donald, "no very weel either, but I was muckle better aff than the bugs, for deil a ane o' them closed an e'e the hale nicht."

THE COALHEAVER AND THE FINE ARTS.

A SMALL-MADE MAN, with a carefully cultivated pair of carroty-colored mustaches, whose style of seedy toggery presented a tolerably good imitation of a "Polish militaire," came before the commissioners to establish his legal right to fifteen pence, the price charged for a whole-length likeness of one _Mister_ Robert White, a member of the "black and thirsty" fraternity of coalheavers.

The complainant called himself Signor Johannes Benesontagi, but from all the genuine characteristics of Cockayne which he carried about him, it was quite evident he had Germanized his patronymic of John Benson to suit the present judicious taste of the "pensive public."

Signor Benesontagi, a peripatetic professor of the "fine arts," it appeared was accustomed to visit public-houses for the purpose of caricaturing the countenances of the company, at prices varying from five to fifteen pence. In pursuit of his vocation he stepped into the "Vulcan's Head," where a conclave of coalheavers were accustomed nightly to assemble, with the double view of discussing politics and pots of Barclay's entire. He announced the nature of his profession, and having solicited patronage, he was beckoned into the box where the defendant was sitting, and was offered a shilling for a _full-length_ likeness. This sum the defendant consented to enlarge to fifteen pence, provided the artist would agree to draw him in "full fig:"--red velvet smalls--nankeen gaiters--sky-blue waistcoat--canary wipe--and full-bottomed fantail. The bargain was struck and the picture finished, but when presented to the sitter, he swore "he'd see the man's back _open and shet_ afore he'd pay the wally of a farden piece for sitch a reg'lar 'snob' as he was made to appear in the portrait."

The defendant was hereupon required to state why he refused to abide by the agreement.

"Vy, my lords and gemmen," said Coaly, "my reasons is this here. That 'ere covey comes into the crib vhere I vos a sitting blowing a cloud behind a drop of heavy, and axes me if as how I'd have my picter draw'd. Vell, my lords, being a little 'lumpy,' and thinking sitch a consarn vould please my Sall, I told him as I'd stand a 'bob,' and be my pot to his'n, perwising as he'd shove me on a pair of prime welwet breeches wot I'd got at home to vear a Sundays. He said he vould, and 'at it should be a 'nout-a-nout' job for he'd larnt to draw _phisogomony_ under _Sir Peter Laurie_."

"It's false!" said the complainant, "the brother artist I named was Sir Thomas Lawrence."

"Vere's the difference?" asked the coalheaver. "So, my lords, this here persecutor goes to vork like a Briton, and claps this here thingamy in my fist, vich ain't not a bit like me, but a blessed deal more likerer a _bull with a belly-ache_." (_Laughter._)

The defendant pulled out a card and handed it to the bench. On inspection it was certainly a monstrous production, but it did present an ugly likeness of the coalheaver. The commissioners were unanimously of opinion it was a good fifteen-penny copy of the defendant's countenance.

"'Taint a bit like me?" said the defendant, angrily. "Vy, lookee here, he's draw'd me vith a _bunch of ingans_ a sticking out of my pocket. I'm werry fond of sitch wegetables, but I never carries none in my pockets."

"A bunch of onions!" replied the incensed artist--"I'll submit it to any gentleman who is a _real_ judge of the 'fine arts,' whether that (_pointing to the appendage_) can be taken for any thing else than the gentleman's _watch-seals_."

"Ha! ha! ha!" roared the coalheaver; "my votch-seals! Come, that's a good 'un--I never vore no votch-seals, 'cause I never had none--so the pictur can't be _like_ me."

The commissioners admitted the premises, but denied the conclusion; and being of opinion that the artist had made out his claim, awarded the sum sought, and costs.

The defendant laid down six shillings one by one with the air of a man undergoing the operation of having so many teeth extracted, and taking up his picture, consoled himself by saying, that "pr'aps his foreman, Bill Jones, vould buy it, as he had the luck of vearing a votch on Sundays."

RETORT COURTEOUS.

SOON after Whitefield landed in Boston, on his second visit to this country, he and Dr. Chauncey met in the street, and, touching their hats with courteous dignity, bowed to each other. "So you have returned, Mr. Whitefield, have you?" He replied, "Yes, Reverend Sir, in the service of the Lord." "I am sorry to hear it," said Chauncey. "So is the Devil!" was the answer given, as the two divines, stepping aside at a distance from each other, touched their hats and passed on.

TEACH YOUR GRANDMOTHER TO SUCK AN EGG.

"YOU see, grandma, we perforate an aperture in the apex, and a corresponding aperture in the base; and by applying the egg to the lips, and forcibly inhaling the breath, the shell is entirely discharged of its contents."

"Bless my soul," cried the old lady, "what wonderful improvements they do make! Now in my young days we just made a hole in each end and sucked."

ACCOMMODATING BOARDER.

THE landlord of an hotel at Brighton entered, in an angry mood, the sleeping apartment of a boarder, and said, "Now, Sir, I want you to pay your bill, and you _must_. I've asked you for it often enough; and I tell you now, that you don't leave my house till you pay it!" "Good!" said his lodger; "just put that in writing; make a regular agreement of it; I'll stay with you as long as I live!"

ACCOMMODATING COOK.

_Mistress:_ "I think, cook, we must part this day month."

_Cook:_ (in astonishment)--"Why, ma'am? I am sure I've let you 'ave your own way in most everything?"

GOOD SHOT.

A SON of Erin, while hunting for rabbits, came across a jackass in the woods, and shot him.

"By me soul and St. Patrick," he exclaimed, "I've shot the father of all the rabbits."

BILLINGSGATE RHETORIC.

AN action in the Court of Common Pleas, in 1794, between two Billingsgate fishwomen, afforded two junior Barristers an opportunity of displaying much small wit.

The counsel for the plaintiff stated, that his client, Mrs. Isaacs, labored in the humble, but honest vocation of a fishwoman, and that while she was at Billingsgate market, making those purchases, which were afterwards to furnish dainty meals to her customers, the defendant Davis grossly insulted her, and in the presence of the whole market people, called her a thief, and another, if possible, still more opprobrious epithet. The learned counsel expatiated at considerable length on the value and importance of character, and the contempt, misery, and ruin, consequent upon the loss of it. "Character, my lord," continued he, "is as dear to a fishwoman, as it is to a duchess. If 'the little worm we tread on feels a pang as great as when a giant dies;' if the vital faculties of a sprat are equal to those of a whale; why may not the feelings of an humble retailer of 'live cod,' and 'dainty fresh salmon,' be as acute as those of the highest rank in society?" Another aggravation of this case, the learned counsel said, was, that his client was an _Old Maid_; with what indignation, then, must she hear that foul word applied to her, used by the Moor of Venice to his wife? His client was not vindictive, and only sought to rescue her character, and be restored to that _place_ in society she had so long maintained.

The Judge inquired if that was the _sole_ object of the plaintiff, or was it not rather baiting with a _sprat_ to catch a _herring_?

Two witnesses proved the words used by the defendant.