"Perfectly, sir, for aught I know," said the witness, in the most undisturbed manner. "Do you swear, witness, that you have no hard feelings toward my client?" asked H., in a highly excited manner, — " no hard feelings, sir!" "Not that I am aware of," said the witness in the same quiet way. "Now sir," said H., springing to his feet and shouting, " Didn't your cows get into his garden and eat his garden up?" "Yes, sir," said the witness, " but I did not lay up any hard feelings against him for that." The counsellor and the house came down to gether. Judge Caldwell of N.C. was slow to see the point of a joke. On trying a case on one oc casion the solicitor called in vain for a witness named Sarah Mooney. -As she did not answer he informed the court that he could not proceed '* without ceremony." The Bar laughed but the Judge looked puzzled. Some weeks after that when at home the point dawned on him and he broke into a loud laugh. Upon his' wife inquir ing the cause of his merriment, he explained that the solicitor had called Sallie Mooney and when she did not answer he had said he could not proceed without ceremony. The wife said she did not see the point. The judge said it had taken him three weeks to find it, but when she did see it, it would be very funny.
When Judge Buxton of N.C. as a young lawyer made his first appearance at the bar, the solicitor, as is customary in that state, asked him to take charge of a case for him. The young lawyer did his best, and the jury found the de fendant, who was charged with some petty mis demeanor, guilty. Soon after one of the jurors, coming round the bar, tapped him on the shoulder. " Buxton," said he, " the jury did not think that man guilty, but we did not like to dis courage a young man."
Judge Saunders of N.C. (afterwards Minister to Spain) had occasion to try a Pollard- Breckenridge case at Harnett County Superior Court.
He had clear opinions on the merits of the case and thus charged the jury : " Gentlemen, I tried a case like this in Rockingham County last week, and the jury sized the defendant's pile, sized his pile, gentlemen. It is for you to say whether female virtue is prized as highly in Harnett as it is in Rockingham. Take the case."
In North Carolina "befo' de wah" they had the whipping-post. A celebrated case was tried in Fayetteville, N.C., wherein Ann K. Simpson was charged with murder. In that county, a large element are descendants of the Scotch who were defeated at Culloden. Many of these were on the jury, which, to the surprise of the public, acquitted the defendant. One of these jurors being spoken to about it replied, " Toot, man, toot. We could na hang a woman. If we could hae whooped her, we would hae found her guilty."
Apropos of this, the whipping-post is still re tained in Delaware. A North Carolina darkey who was lately convicted of larceny in Delaware and conducted to his punishment remarked with much simplicity to the sheriff, "That sort o' reminds me of old times."
In a suit for separation, counsel for the plain tiff pleaded, among other reasons, incompatibility of temperament. He depicted the character of the husband as " brutal, violent, and passionate." The husband's advocate rose in his turn, and described the wife as " spiteful, short-tempered, and sulky." "Pardon me," interrupted thejudge, addressing both limbs of the law; " I cannot see, gentlemen, where the incompatibility of temperament comes
The reformed system of procedure was adopted in North Carolina in 1868, but the older members of the Bar were reluctant to become acquainted with it. The well-known limitation upon evidence by a party in regard to a personal communication or transaction with a deceased person under whom the opposite party to the action claims was Sec. 343 of the Code of Civil
