Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/16

742 "How did anybody know about the letter?" he asked. "Did you tell?"

"Yes, I did," said Citizen Grow, with a pout.

"Then it's your fault you got laughed at, not mine. I didn't tell. Your Honor, I wrote that letter to her to tease her. If she hadn't blabbed, nobody would have known it."

The letter, exhibit A, was handed up to the judge, at his request, by Smith. He read it with a humorous smile.

"There doesn't seem to be anything very dreadful in this. Perhaps if it is read in court any injury done to Citizen Grow will be mended. Are you willing the letter should be read?"

"I'm willing," said Jackson.

"My client objects," Smith.

The letter was not read, greatly to the disappointment of the spectators, who, under the circumstances, thronged the courtroom.



"It doesn't seem to me this is a case for damages," said the court. "Dismissed. But, Jackson, don't do it again."

The letter, in fact, was only the work of a teasing boy, and altogether harmless. The tendency to take all troubles into court was easily apparent in the little community. As in older nations the law was the standard of ethics. "I'll sue you," "I'll have you arrested," made part of the dialogue of every dispute. The elemental way of settling differences with fists seemed altogether effaced. Jackson, who had been in jail twenty-eight times the previous season for fighting, had not been once arrested this season. Such facts as these will be commonly believed to indicate a distinct advance in self-government and citizenship, which is the primary object of the George Junior Republic.

To the fascinations of the law and of the paraphernalia of the courts must be given due weight. The daily session of the police court is the event of the day. It is held at nine o'clock, and to be there in time, carryalls and wheels are seen coming over the road from Freeville, Dryden, Elmira, and the surrounding towns, and visiting professors in sociology from the colleges beg to stay over night that they may be present.

The judge of the police court is still in knickerbockers, and is familiarly known as Jakey. But when the policeman posted at the bar calls "Hats off," the citizens square themselves around into orderly rows, and even the visitors, disposed to regard the affair as a bit of play-acting, drop their voices to a whisper, and finally cease trying to communicate at all. The offenders, when not on bail, are brought up in charge of the police, by a private stairway, from the jail below. There is a grim reality about the jail, with its narrow cells, plank beds, iron-barred doors, and warden with jingling keys. This is apt to be reflected in the faces in the "pen." The procedure is modeled after the police courts of New York City, with an exception in favor of the decorousness and general judicial atmosphere of the lesser court. It is worth seeing the facetious visitor with blushes try to efface himself under the judicial eye, and woe unto the offender disposed to look jokingly upon his offense. There are occasional cases of petty larceny, but the offenses are rarely more serious than breaches of the