MEN OF PEACE.

Kumara Times, Issue 1059, 21 February 1880, Page 2

MEN OF PEACE.

An amusing story has just been published by au American contemporary concerning an incident which occurred not long ago in one. of the mountain counties of Northern Georgia. It should be premised that the State of Georgia has a very stringent law forbidding its citizens to carry pistols upon pain of forfeiting the weapon, and paying a fine of fifty dollars, or being imprisoned for thirty days. Shortly after the passage of this enactment Judge Lester was holding court in a little town, when suddenly he suspended the trial of a cause by ordering the sheriff to lock the doors of tha court-house, so that no one could make

( \ia egress -from ifc. " Gentlemen." said the judge, when the doors were closed, " ■*< I have just seen a pistol on a man in this room, and I Cannot reconcile it to toy sense of duty as & peace officer to let stich a violation of the law pass uunoticed. I ought, perhaps, to go before the grand jury and indict him 5 but if that tnan will walk up to this stand and lay his pistol and a fine of one dollar down here, I will let hhn off this time.** The judge paused, and an •attorney, sitting just before him, got tip, slipped his hand into a hip pocket, drew out a neat ivory-handle sixshooter •and laid it find one doB&r down upon the stand. "This is all right,'* saidthe judge; " but you are not the man that I saw with' the pistol." Upon this another attorney rose and laid ] down a Coitus revolver and a dollar bill j before the judge, who again repeated his former observation-. The process went on, until nineteen pistols of all kinds of size and shape lay upon the stand, together with nineteen dollars by their side. The judge laughed aa he complimented the nineteen delinquents upon being men of business, but the man whom he had seen with the pistol had not yet come up, and glancing to the far .side of the court, he minute to accept my proposition, and if he fails I will hand him over to the sheriff.* Immediately two men from the back of the court rose and began to move towanJs the judge*s stand Office they stopped and looked at each Other, and then, coming slowly forward, laid down their pistols and their dollars. As they turned their backs the judge said, " This man with the bkck whiskers is the one that I originally saw." The story, for the accuracy of which "pur contemporary vouches, is the confirmation of the charge lately brought in the IjForth American Review against Southern men, twitting them with ths almost universal Gustbrn of carrying •concealed weapons about their persons.

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