Legal Acuteness. prisonment, during which he was chained to a log of wood, he was brought to trial on the usual charge of returning from banishment. There was a dash of the ludicrous in the proceedings. One of the charges against him was that he refused to take off his hat in court, and another was that he persisted in saying " thee " and " thou." " Will you put me to death," he asked, " for speaking good English, and for not putting off my clothes? " " A man may speak treason in good English," was the reply. "His it trea son to say ' thee ' and " thou ' to a single person? " This was a poser for the judges; and while they were trying to stop his mouth by a few more questions, to their exceeding dismay another Quaker, named Winlock Christison, who had also returned from banishment, entered the court and placed himself beside the prisoner. The case of Leddra was first despatched by condemning him to be executed, and this atrocity was committed on the 14th of March. Christi son, at a second appearance, received a like sentence; but he was accorded the choice of voluntary banishment, and this latter alter native he appears to have embraced. At the same session of the General Court Judah Browne and Peter Pierson were or dered to be taken out of prison and stripped from the girdle upward by the executioner, and tied to the cart's tail and whipped through the town with twenty stripes, and then carried to Roxbury and delivered to the constable there, who was to tie them, or cause them in like manner to be tied, to a
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cart's tail, and again whip them through the town with ten stripes, and then carried to Dedham and delivered to the constable there, who was again in like manner to cause them to be tied to the cart's tail and whipped with ten stripes through the town, and from thence they were immediately to depart the jurisdiction at their peril. Following this order on the records of the General Court, without the separation of a line, there is an order by the Court for a day of thanksgiv ing to Almighty God, on the 4th of July, 1661, "for the many favors wherewith He hath been pleased to compass us about for so many years past in this remote wilderness." These executions of Quakers had caused much dissatisfaction among the people, and public sympathy was turned toward the sufferers. The court was obliged to take strong measures to keep away the crowds of citizens who constantly thronged the windows of the prison where they were con fined. At every execution a large body of armed men was in attendance to prevent disturbance, and soldiers were left to guard the town " while the rest of the citizens went to the execution." Accounts of these proceedings reaching the ears of King Charles, that monarch, who had other reasons for being dissatisfied with the colonists, immediately granted a man damus directed to all the governors of New England, requiring them to proceed no fur ther as to corporal punishments against the Quakers.
LEGAL ACUTENESS. VERY lawyer knows that since the with' drawal from our law system of " special pleading," and since the power of the judges to "amend" has been conferred by legisla tive acts, the arena in which combats of le22
gal disputation took place has been very much narrowed. Formerly the most minute error in an in dictment or record was a sufficient ground for quashing the one or directing a nonsuit
