An Antebellum Law School. Forthwith Alexander was served with a notice to appear before that retributiondealing body, the irrepressible court of the North Fork. With the examples of so many others be fore him, Alexander dared not disobey; so, in fear and trembling, suffered himself to be led away by the bearer of the summons. The sentence passed was a most fearful one indeed, to Alexander. As he heard it, heaven and earth seemed coming together. "Insomuch," the judge declared, "as he had proven guilty and convicted of murder in the first degree — the taking away of the life in cold blood of an innocent victim — he was to be carried to the identical spot that had witnessed the death throes of this most faithful canine, and there, pendant from the same limb, he was to be hung head down ward 'till red in the face, and might the Lord have mercy upon the crown of his head/" Alexander, be it understood, in the agony of fear that had seized upon him, heard naught of the latter and most ridiculous part of the sentence. He had only com prehended that he was to be hung, and, in the great ignorance of his stupid soul, never doubted but that these reckless students would do just as they had declared. Desperately poor Alexander pleaded for his life, asserting that he had committed no crime, that the dog was a worthless, afflicted cur that " was better off out 'n o' his mis'ty than in it." In vain; they were inexorable! Still entreating, still protesting, Alexander was dragged more dead than alive to the apple tree in the orchard, where his grim executioners prepared to carry out the sen tence with all the effectiveness possible. So sad a havoc had the terrors of dread antici pation made with the mental faculties of poor Alexander, so vivid and realistic the play of his imagination, that even before he had been swung head downward from the limb of the tree he could feel the rope around his neck/ And when at last he had been so
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suspended, he went through all the horrors of strangulation in the final struggle! When cut down at last, he had fainted away from fright and pure nervous exhaustion. There was a first-rate market around the foot-hills of the North Fork, neither Judge Bailey nor Alexander finding it much trouble to reinforce the larder, even on short notice. But occasionally the supply would run short of the demand. Who can wonder at this with the voracious appetites of nearly a score and a half of hungry boys to appease? Particularly was this true in regard to fresh meats. On one of these occasions, when never so much as a pound of steak could be obtained, the judge declared that old Dick must go! Now, Dick was an ancient and venerable ox who had long ago out-lived his days of usefulness, though he still re tained a sufficiency of the animation of youth to land himself on the other side of an eight-rail fence. It was because of this festive tendency that the judge desired to see old Dick go. Now, Judge Bailey was undoubtedly a lawyer of the first ability. He could grapple with the knottiest and toughest problems of the law, and come off victor every time. But often where even the simplest thing was concerned, he was as unsophisticated as a child. When, therefore, he was re monstrated with for the slaughter of the ancient Dick, he was unconvinced. The meat could be chopped and pounded, he argued, and thus rendered eatable. So Dick the venerable fell a victim to the butcher's axe, but alas, for the judge's fondly cherished hopes as regarded hammer and chopper! All the pounding and chop ping in Christendom couldn't have reduced that iron-like mass to anything in the least approaching a palatable morsel. In vain the judge, his family, and the students who boarded with him essayed the mastication of the variously served up parts of the de ceased Dick. All in vain, too, the cook taxed her every art to render each mess in
