Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/613



Tupper's rhymes—the error could never be forgiven.

What should be done ? All their proceedings, so far as the virtue of book in the administering of oaths was concerned, were of course invalid. If the book was essential to the sound administration of law, they had signally failed in using, in place of the sacred scriptures a volume of maudlin verses; if the book is not essential, then why add to the multitude of idle forms by which justice is hampered? The free and easy tribunals of audacious rulings committed no such stupid blunders as this. A long and solemn silence followed this discovery, as the men of merchandise gazed one upon another in blank chagrin. Finally an intelligent juror of very respectable wealth opened his mouth and slowly articulated, half soliloquizing:—"I would not like wittingly to do such a thing; my business needs my attention; we cannot well go over these days of arduous labors; an oath in the eyes of the Almighty is equally binding, perhaps, whether the swearer's hand rests on a Tupper or on a Paul, so long as the man himself does not know it; the sacredness of forms should be sustained and the etiquette of courts preserved ; I think on the whole we had better say nothing of this to. the judge. If we keep the secret to ourselves the oath is just as binding and the law just as good as if the swearing had been done upon a veritable bible; though it staggers me somewhat to think to what use unlearned and ungodly jurists might put this train of argument." So it was agreed and so done. The jury went into court; Alcalde Geary complimented them after the usual fashion for the faithful performance of their duties, apologized for his inability to pay their fees owing to the conspicuous emptiness of the city treasury, and discharged them.

When the Jenny Lind theatre was metamorphosed into a city hall there was quite a reform instituted in