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little poem, and because they were such good law: The judge charged the jury For an hour and a quarter; He spoke of murder, And then of manslaughter. He stated that malice Was the essence of crime, And that this was too clear To take up their time. That if the defendant, When his arrow he hurled, Had acted from malice Against the whole world, And cared not who suffered So he had his sport, That then he deserved The worst sentence in court.
THESE anecdotes recall two other stories of Webster printed some years ago in the Evening Post, whose correspondent wrote : Master Pierce, the father of Mr. Henry L. Pierce, of Boston, kept the school on Milton Hill. To this it was a walk of a mile for me, and of a mile and a half for Fletcher, the eldest son of Mr. Webster. One day, thinking to pleasantly vary the mode of locomotion, Fletcher, during the absence of his father, took his favor ite black mare from the stable, and, calling for me on the way, we two rode bareback to the school, taking the precaution to tie the mare in a lane a little short of the schoolhouse, intend ing to ride home at noon, as it was Saturday. But Mr. Webster unexpectedly returned to his house, and, missing the mare, suspected the escapade. The first notice we had of our detec tion was the appearance of his stately form at the door fronting our seat. He fixed his eyes upon us, and they spoke even louder than the deep voice which followed, "Where is the mare?" Master Pierce dropped his ferule, the class re citing became breathlessly silent, and the cul prits shrank into absolute nothingness. I could never liken my sensation on that occasion to anything else than the fear of Cain when the missing Abel was required at his hands. Fletcher at last managed to gather himself together, and walked with his father down to the place where the beast was tied. Mr. Webster fastened her by the bridle to the back of his
chaise, and not a word did he say about the misdemeanor to his son or to me, either then or afterward, but it was the last time we went to school on that black mare, and nothing would have induced us to repeat the experiment. There are old men and men of middle age who can remember the magical influence of Mr. Webster's eye, and they can readily imagine the scene I have described. His voice was majestic, but his eye was almost superhuman. One Sunday a student from Andover occu pied the pulpit, my father not intending to take any part in the exercises. The young minister got along very well with the opening prayer and the scripture lesson, but when he had read only a verse or two of the hymn he became confused, stammered, and at last his voice failed him entirely. As he seemed to be taken suddenly ill, my father finished the services, preaching an extemporaneous discourse. On the way home in the carriage, the young man, who by that time had quite revived, being pressed for an expla nation of his conduct, finally confessed. " Well, sir, it was merely an unaccountable nervousness. Just as I was reading the second stanza of the hymn, a gentleman came into the church and sat down in a broad-aisle pew directly before me, fixing such great, staring black eyes upon me that I was frightened out of my wits 1" Until he was then told, he did not know that Daniel Webster was a member of the congrega tion or an inhabitant of the town. THE defendant in a case concerning the right of way to a well, was asked in the cross exam ination : " How long have you had this right of way?" Witness — " Forty years, sir." Lawyer — " And, madam, how old are you?" Witness — "Twenty-five years, sir," and she wondered why the court laughed. IN Cape Breton, a short time ago one Benja min Bowline assigned for the benefit of his cred itors, and the usual notices announcing the fact and -that a meeting would be held on a certain day were sent out. Among the notices was one to a country storekeeper in the county of Inverness who had sent some butter to Bowline the account amounting to about one hundred dollars. With the notice went an affidavit to
