A "NEW COUNTRY."

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 196, 29 November 1872, Page 3

A "NEW COUNTRY."

A lenient country judge of Oakland, New York; usually prefaced sentence with the following formula:— " Prisoner, hold up your hand. You have been found guilty of [trespass, assault, larceny, as the case might be], But the Court takes into consideration that this is a new country, Society is unsettled, the laws aru not understood, and we must expect such things in settling a new country. So I give you 30 days." Ua one occasion a man was arrainged for wilful" perjury. He had property aud standing, but the case was so clear that the jury pronounced him guilty without leaving their seats. The prosecuting attorney was in ecstacies over what all criminal lawyers consider no small exploit—the recovery of a verdict of guilty on an indictment for perjury. The prisoner was brought up for sentence, and the judge commenced : —" You have been convicted of perjury, prisoner. This is a grave offence ; but I consider that as this is a new country, and we must have some perjury among the difficulties of settling a new country, so I shall give only thirty days in the county gaoi." The prosecuting attorney, to wind up a case of false swearing/ went outside the court house and gave~<vent to a large volume of the genuine article.