A Scene in Court.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 664, 23 September 1876, Page 5 (Supplement)

A Scene in Court.

An American lawyer writing to a friend, explaining how he was getting along, gave the following particulars : ' I haven't practised any law since Judge Cullen ruled me out of Court for contemptuousness and bound me over for twenty-four hours. Since my advent to this part of the country it has been my humble aim to be but a frugal tiller of the soil. It is astonishing, though, how the lawyer will show in a man after he has once been engaged in the legal profession. I thought I could erist here as a barrister incognito^ but when our minister called on me this week and remarked that he i judged from the frank, open, analytical and metaphysical mode of my conversation that I must have at some time been an adornment to the bar, I readily saw that somehow the scent of the law still clung to tho shattered vase.' ' Fact? is, Bro. Peck. 1 said he, ' I have a suit on my hands which I am bound to contest, if necessary, to the bitter end of my existence. The cause of action is brought by one Plugger, the town.dentist, to collect from me a certain sum for the construction and building of a set of false teeth by the said Plugger, for my helpmeet.' ' Did he build 'em and launch 'em ?' 1 He did, but not according to specifica tion ; they wero warranted to crack hickory nuts and bite the cereal corn from its native cob, neither of which mechanical labors will they perform.' ' Very well, I'll specificate him. When does Court meet?' • Next Tuesday.' 'All right— let the teeth appear quo warranto, and the lady with them, res judice.' Our Court-house is a splendid structure of sawed pine, with plank seats for the congregation, chairs for the bar and jury, and an elevated pulpit for the Judge. Court week had drawn together the male population for miles around, white and black — all mingling together so sociable like— whisky and sugar. As I didn't know who of them might be on my jury in the tooth case, and anxious to be sociable. I mingled too, that is when I was invited. When the Court had assembled, and Sheriff hoiorod, ' O, yes ! O, yes !' it was so solemn that there wasn't a dry mouth in the house. There was a hog-stealing case before our'n came on, and I had an opportunity to sort of get the hang of things and notate the Judge's rulings, being somewhat rusty like. After the darkey, who was indicted for stealing seven hogs, had been acquitted by his peers, because it 'pears he only stole a sow and six pigs, the Judge looked over his copy-book and called the case of Plugger versus Eev. Dr. Sampson. Plugeier'3 lawyer stood six feet one-and-a-half in his brogans, and had an uneasy way of smiling while he picked his teeth with a four-inch pocket-knife. After a jury of nine cullered pussons and three white men had been drawn and quartered in their proper seats cLe prosecuting lawyer opened with a lecture on teeth in general, from saw teeth to fine-tooth combs, and after exhausting history, came to the poiut that his client had in the sympathetic coarse of his business made, manufactured and duly located, in their proper receptacle a set of masticating grinders for Rev. Mrs. Sampson, for which Eev. Mr. S. refused to come down or point up, and as it was a rule of his client's business that no goods were taken in exchange he was thero (sticking his knife in the table) to get his money, and he was goin' to have it ! Having put Plugger on the stand, who testified to the general facts in the case, the witness was kindly turned over to me for cross-examination. • Mr. Plugger, you'ro a dentist, aren't you?' 1 Yes ?' sir. 1 .»* ' Yes, sir, you're a dentist — you're one j i«f those fellows who sit a man down in a Wb#r chair open oi# mouth, tell him it »n't hurt, get hold of f> stump with a pair Hbi[ pers, haul iiim otar the back of the him arouiav ' the room on hi*

I back, put your feet against his shoulders I and haul his jaw out. You're one of the chaps who take a brace and bit, bore a hole in a man's molar, go inside the cavern, scrape it out, put in a load of dynamite and blow the man's head off. You're one of the fiends in human shape who take a bucket of plaster of Paris, pour it into the mouth of a weak, delicate female woman, get a cast of her innocent gums, build a set of nut-crackers tit for an Antarctic [ walrus, and then come into this honorable Court with all the brazen effrontery of an incarnate — ' ' Your honor, T objeCi to the gentleman's high falutin' sarcasm t' wards inj client.' ' Mr. Peck, pleise confine yourself to the evidence, and don't give us so much •commentary.' ' See here, Judge ; whose handling this witness — you or me ?' ' Don't talk back to me, sir, or I'll come down there and lay you out V Then I got mad and hit him square in the eye with the set of teeth. Then the Judge just bounced over that pulpit and lighted on my back. 'Seems like there was a mixture of tornado and earthquake in the Court-house about that time, and all that I could remember when I was driving home was seeing the Judge with the table on top of him on the floor, yelling to the jury to give a verdict for Plugger.