ONE A. was the justice at a little village in Eastern Iowa, and, as there were but very few citizens, he was both justice and constable, and acted in nearly every other official capacity. He was on the whole a pretty good man, and had only one failing — that of getting drunk when ever he came within smelling distance of fire water. One time he went to the large city, where such things were dispensed, and became jagged to such an extent that he could not find his way home for a day or two. On getting home he was given a Mrs. Caudle lecture by the wife, who told him that he, being a justice, ought to be ashamed of himself to thus get full, and that if there had only been another official in the township she should have him arrested. . A. took the reprimand with due Socratic stoicism, he thought the matter over and got down the musty law book to see what he really could do under the laws of his State. He found that he had committed a crime, which should be punished. So he issued a warrant of arrest as constable, got himself into court, and as justice began to try himself. He acted as attorney for the prosecution, and then for the defence, and all the time as chief witness for both sides. He made two speeches, and then as justice fined himself fifty dollars and costs. Before the twenty days were up for an appeal to the higher court he thought of perfecting an appeal, but found no one to go on his bond. It seemed probable that in the higher court he could not control the judge; and hence, as justice, he re mitted the fine during good behavior, while the State should pay costs. This is actually the justice docket as it appears in one of the court house files of a county in Iowa. The good man has been dead for some days, and in all his dealings he was just the kind of a man he ap peared to be — kind, generous, and liberal to a fault; so kind, indeed that he remitted his own fine, as he would any one else's for the same offence. AN almanack for the year 1778 cites the following judgment in a case of murder : A Portuguese shoemaker prosecuted a bishop who had got his father assassinated, and the fact being proved, the bishop was prohibited from saying mass for one year. The shoemaker, not satisfied, applied to Don Pedro, king of Portugal, who, after inquiring into the case,
sent for the shoemaker, and asked him if he would venture to kill the bishop; which he undertook to do with the king's permission, and performed the day following, at a pro cession, just under a window where his Majesty was placed. He was immediately seized and brought before the king. Don Pedro asked him what could prompt him to murder a bishop. He pleaded the provocation he had received, and his Majesty's permission; to which the king replied : " Since the bishop was prohibited from saying mass for one year, I condemn you not to work at your trade for the same term, but that you shall not starve, a pension must be paid you out of the bishop's estate." A YOUNG lawyer from the East was sent to a mining town in the West to straighten out the affairs of a client. In the course of the business the sheriff had gone out of his way to do several favors, and the attorney, while unwilling to offer money in return, wished to express his appreci ation in some more delicate way. So he invited the sheriff into a saloon to take a drink. In reply to the really superfluous question of what he would take, the officer of the law answered " Whiskey." His host ordered beer; whereupon the sheriff, leaning over confiden tially, said in a tone rather of instruction than reproof : " Mister, you're making a mistake. In this saloon whiskey and beer cost just the same, and you can get a sight drunker on the whiskey." LITERARY
NOTES.
IN TJie Crisis, Mr. Winston Churchill has chosen the stirring times in St. Louis before and during the Civil War for the setting of his latest historical novel, in which the descendants of RicJuird Carvel and his friends take the leading parts, while Lincoln, Grant and Sherman relieve the Revolutionary heroes of his former novel. The heroine is a beautiful rebel who sings "Dixie," urges all her friends to die for the cause of the South, and herself promptly falls in love with a staunch supporter of the Union. The friendship of her father, an ideal Southern gen tleman, for an abolitionist lawyer, ungracious in manner, but, underneath his gruffness, ten der and loving, arouses our greatest interest.
