LAWYER PEPPER AND THE WITNESS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3563, 9 December 1882, Page 4

LAWYER PEPPER AND THE WITNESS.

A Humorous Scrap,

One of the best things I ever heard came off in the Superior Court, at Paris, Me., not many years ago.

In one of the towns of Oxford county, through which the Little Androscoggin winds its way, a party had established a fish-way for the hatching and rearing of trout; and after the speckled beauties had gained a goodly size, and were suffered to run free in a brook upon the premises, certain evil-disposed persons, having not the fear of the law before their eyes, surreptitiously hooked quite a number of tbe largest and most valuable of the fish, and took them away. At length tho owners of the fish-way were enabled to designate the individuals who had stolen their trout, or one of them, at least; and they entered complaint against him, and had him arrested. He was taken before a trial justice, and by him bound over to appear before the fcuperior Court, at its session in October. And in October the case came on. The complainants had engaged Andrew Pepper to conduct the case for them, and they considered the evidence they had to offer as good and conclusive. But it is not our purpose to follow the trial. We have only to do with one of the witnesses. Over in the Crooked River District, where the defendant himself belonged, and living very near to him, was a laboring man, named Smith —Antepast was his Christian name, —and he was an institution. The sayings and doings of Ante Smith would fill a volume ; and it would be an interesting volume, at that. Well, —Ante was called as a witness by the plaintiff. He had been heard to tell of the ' boouhif ul traout' he had eaten at Sol. Pingree's house, etc. Sol. Pingree was the defendant—the supposed culprit; and if he had had trout on his table as large, and fat, and as nice, as Ante Smith had gushingly told of, he must have obtained them from complainant's fish-way ; for nono others like them were to be found anywhero in that region. But when Antepast came to the stand, he had become strangly obtuse and forgetful. He didn't remember that he had ever told of eating trout at Solomon's house. He had eaten fish there, on several occasions, but he could nofc declare that he had ever eaten any trout. Lawyer Pepper became ruetious. He bad looked for a suro thing from this witness. He questioned him sharply. 'You know a trout when you see it, don't you ?' asked Pepper, hotly. ' Yaas,—s'pose I dew.' 1 And yet you now tell us that you could not declare those fish to be trout, which you saw at the defendant's house. Can you swear that they were not trout ? ' ' No/ Square Pepper, I sartinly couldn't. I want'r be honest 'baout this thing, cause ther's a good deal at stake.' 'Yes !—I should say so. And, look you, my man : Your character for truth and veracity may be at stake !' ' Sho ! Yeou don't say so !' ' I do say so, and I mean it i' and Pepper was going on, with further personal allusion, ■when the judge stopped him. And then, afc a glance from the court, Ante explained that the fish, when he saw

them at defendant's house, had been scraped; their heads and tails cut off, and their fins pulled out; and, moreover, had been fried to a crispy, juicy, ' boochiful' brown !so that no traces of their living look was left. ' Witness,' said Pepper, with bated breath, —' Now look me in the eye ! We will admit that the outward semblance of those fisli had been destroyed. Bufc, is there nofc a marked difference between the taste of a trout, and that of a pickerel ? ' ' Yaas, —in coorse ther' be.' 'Very well. Were those fish pickerel that you ate at defendant's house ? ' ' I should say not, 'Squai'e.' ' Then what could they have been but trout ? ' ' Why,—they mout 'a been horn-paouts ; an' they mout 'a been yaller perch; an' they—' ' Hold on ! Goodness sake alive, witness ! You cannot pretend to tell us—you have not the effrontery to tell us—that anybody could impose upon you a horn-pout, or a yellow perch, for a trout. You know better. You have confessed that your taste is keen ! You will not deny that ? ' Ante shook his head. He had no desire to deny it. Then Pepper arose to one last effort, determined to approach the point warily. He would entrap the witness bo way of his keenness of taste. ' Now, witness ! Mark ! and remember ! You have confessed to a keeness of taste. And now, answer me this : Have you not a keen relish for fish ? and have you not had it for many years ? ' Antepast gave the lawyer a look such as only he could have given, as he replied : ' 'Square ! I hey got a Bort of a relish for fish ; but dang my buttons !ef ever I could endure 'em with sech a slathering mess 'o PEPPER-SAKSE ! ' The witness went down.