"Tales Of The Law,"
Which In This Country Is An Amazingly Elastic Affair, Followed
From The Lips Of A Judge.
Forgive me for recording one tale that
struck me as new.
It may interest the up-country Bar in India.
Once upon a time there was Samuelson, a young lawyer, who feared
not God, neither regarded the Bench. (Name, age, and town of the
man were given at great length.) To him no case had ever come as
a client, partly because he lived in a district where lynch law
prevailed, and partly because the most desperate prisoner shrunk
from intrusting himself to the mercies of a phenomenal stammerer.
But in time there happened an aggravated murder - so bad, indeed,
that by common consent the citizens decided, as a prelude to
lynching, to give the real law a chance. They could, in fact,
gambol round that murder. They met - the court in its
shirt-sleeves - and against the raw square of the Court House
window a temptingly suggestive branch of a tree fretted the sky.
No one appeared for the prisoner, and, partly in jest, the court
advised young Samuelson to take up the case.
"The prisoner is undefended, Sam," said the court. "The square
thing to do would be for you to take him aside and do the best
you can for him."
Court, jury, and witness then adjourned to the veranda, while
Samuelson led his client aside to the Court House cells. An hour
passed ere the lawyer returned alone.
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