Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 16.pdf/434

This page needs to be proofread.

The Crime of "Hogamy" from the actual occurrences which made the definite impression. In this resulting mental picture he was unable to distinguish in any way between what he imagined he had seen and what he had actually seen. He was as honestly convinced that he had seen the one as the other. Surprising as the result of this experiment has been, the conditions under which it was conducted were remarkably favorable for ac curate testimony. The assault and the at tending circumstances were extremely sim ple, not lasting more than eight or ten min utes. The witnesses were above the average in mental ability; two of them are among the highest rank men in the present second year class. They knew at the time that they

385

would have to testify to the occurrence. Ac cordingly every faculty was alertly directed toward accurate observation. They were on their mettle both to see exactly and to re port exactly. They were honest. The fact that two were friends of the parties did not seem to make any difference; their better ac quaintance with details may be attributed to their more trained minds. These facts, to gether with the immediate examination of the witnesses by the counsel, all made the chances of obtaining an accurate account on the witness stand unusually favorable. Yet under such conditions it was impos sible to convey to the jury what actually oc curred. After listening to all of the testi mony the jury were in hopeless confusion.

THE CRIME OF "HOGAMY." BY H. С. С. A CERTAIN "daughter of Erin," of many summers, and twice wedded, —once in Ireland where she left nher ould man to shut fur hisself and be come silf-supparting, and once at a certain mining camp in the far West— came into my office recently in a state of considerable excitement, and while extract ing a ten dollar bill from a tobacco sack, recited her trouble as follows: "Sure and wild ye beiive it, sor, but thim vinimous neighbors o' mine is all puttin' their dirty hids togither and savin' that Mrs. Pat Mulli gan (and that's mesilf) has broke the law and committed 'hogamy' and that they'll soon be about giting the shiriff after me, sure, and Mr. O'Hooligan, the only dacent man in the town, says I must see a lawyer to onct, and git all the advice I kin for ten dollars. He says I must buy a divarce, and thin shake the coort papers in the shiriff's face, if he ivir presoom to put his unsoightly mug

inside my door. And that's jist what I'll be after dooin'! How soon kin I buy a divarce trom one or the ither of them onery curs that I tied mesilf up to in a moment of silftorgitiulness?" I told her that there was no such crime known to the law as "hogamy," —was she sure that was the name? "Well, sur." she explained, "ye see it's jist this way, thim same dirty neighbors o' mine call it plgamy, but I calls it hogamy, sure I do, be cause the fust time I ever heard the beastly name applied to mesilf, it come straight from one o' thim; and till me now what difference can thai make whin it comes to buying a divarce?" So it gradually dawned on me that her dear neighbors had been whispering around that she had committed the crime of bigamy, and had made threats that they would have her "arristed" for it. Then T ascertained that her first husband, so far as she knew to the contrary, was still living at the same place in the "ould countrie"

.