Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/270

 Greater authority was conferred upon the worthy Teutonic apothecary who had been acting as probate judge, or rather much of the authority which he had been exercising was confirmed, and the day of evil-doers began to be a hard and dismal one. The old judge was ordinarily a pharmacist, and did not pretend to know anything of law, but his character for probity and honesty was so well established that the people, who were tired of lawyers, voted to put in place a man who would deal out justice, regardless of personal consequences. The blind goddess had no worthier representative than this frontier Hippocrates, in whose august presence the most hardened delinquents trembled. Blackstone and Coke and Littleton and Kent were not often quoted in the dingy halls of justice where the "Jedge" sat, flanked and backed by shelves of bottles bearing the cabalistic legends, "Syr. Zarzæ Comp.," "Tinc. Op. Camphor," "Syr. Simpl.,"and others equally inspiring, and faced by the small row of books, frequently consulted in the knottier and more important cases, which bore the titles "Materia Medica," "Household Medicine," and others of the same tenor. Testimony was never required unless it would serve to convict, and then only a small quantity was needed, because the man who entered within the portals of this abode of Esculapius and of Justice left all hope behind. Every criminal arraigned before this tribunal was already convicted; there remained only the formality of passing sentence, and of determining just how many weeks to affix as the punishment in the "shane gang." An adjustment of his spectacles, an examination of the "Materia Medica," and the Judge was ready for business. Pointing his long finger at the criminal, he would thunder: "Tu eres vagabundo" (thou art a tramp), and then proceed to sentence the delinquent on his face to the chain-gang for one week, or two, or three, as the conditions of his physiognomy demanded.

"Jedge, isn't thet a r-a-a-ther tough dose to give t' a poor fellow what knowed your grandfadder?" asked one American prisoner who had received an especially gratifying assurance of the Judge's opinion of his moral turpitude.

"Ha! you knowed my grandfaddy; vere abouts, mine frient, you know him?" queried the legal functionary.

"Wa'al, Jedge, it's jest like this. Th' las' time I seed the ole gent was on th' Isthmus o' Panama; he war a-swingin' by his tail from th'limbs of a cocoanut tree, a-gatherin' o' cocoanuts, 'n"