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352
EARLY TIMES.
352

"'Tain't no use of our quarreling, Pike; you can take an appeal this time!"

"Oh, I kin, kin I? Well, fer fear of anythin' happenin' ter make yer disremember it, yer kin jist pass them ar papers rite over heyer this minnit, an' the thing 'll be settled!"

And Pike, as good as his word, stood there covering the Judge with his "sasherarer" at full cock, until the clerk made out the document without any unnecessary verbiage, you may be sure; and they were duly signed by his Honor with slightly unsteady hand, and passed over to him. The precedent established in this case was ruinous to Judge Hollowbarn. He never fully recovered from the shock; and other summary proceedings following thick and fast upon if, he soon after threw up the judicial sponge, retired from the field, and drifted away from the sight—almost from the memory as well—of the dwellers in Old Tuolumne, going, none knew or cared where, to seek the obscurity he was so well fitted to adorn.


Sometimes the sentiment of the community was divided between a preference for summary justice as administered by Judge Lynch, and respect for the majesty of the law, as embodied in the legally constituted courts. In such cases a compromise was usually agreed upon, a trial taking place with all the forms of the written law, but under the direction of Judge Lynch. When our friend from Old Tuolumne had finished his story of the Honorable Circuit Justice's Court, Col. Charles W. Crocker, now of the