Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/534

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HE frontier justice of the peace has had so many airings that the theme is becoming encumbered with cobwebs, but I am called upon to record the conduct of the most remarkable jury which perhaps was ever impanelled.

Before his Honor Judge Jefferson Davis, of Walnut Grove Precinct No. 8, in the Territory of Arizona and county of Yavapai, one John Doe, whose other name I withhold because he has permanently reformed, was solemnly arraigned for stealing a certain saddle, carefully described in the complaint. After an elaborate trial, the jury retired, with the written admonitions of the court, to Old Abner Wade's cow-barn to deliberate.

In the course of three-quarters of an hour they brought in a verdict of murder in the first degree. The court promptly admonished them that such a verdict "wouldn't go," since the man had only been charged with stealing a saddle, and sent them back to redeliberate on the fate of the bow-legged knight of the riata. A few minutes later a brother of the defendant came along and presented them with a quart of Bourbon and a couple of sacks of smoking-tobacco, along with a new deck of cards, accompanied with the compliments of the defendant, and an hour later the jury returned the following verdict: "We the jury, with a supreme reverence for the principle of justice and profound deference for this honorable court, find that the defendant, John Doe, stole the saddle in self-defence, and therefore acquit him."

AROLD, aged eight, came in late from school one day, and upon his mother's asking the reason, he replied, "I walked home with Miss Snyder."

Miss Snyder was his teacher.

"Did you kiss her good-by?" his mother asked.

"Naw!" he replied, half sheepishly.

"Why didn't you?" he was again questioned.

Cause one o' the other boys came up just as I was about to leave," he said, as though that settled it; but his mother insisted:

"Well, why didn't you kiss her, anyway? You shouldn't have been ashamed to do it."

"Wasn't ashamed," he protested, stoutly, "but I knew if she kissed me she would have to kiss the other fellow too, and his face was dirty."