Page:Shelley, a poem, with other writings (Thomson, Debell).djvu/113

Rh whom one tried to avoid and the other sought a meeting. At length the latter attained his desire, and in the "difficulty" which ensued was shot by the other, who was tried but got off clear as the evidence was not considered perfect. The dead man had $64 odd in his pockets, so it was resolved to give him a decent burial. They stopped the funeral procession at a store, drank to his salvation out of his own money, and also took a bottle of whisky with them to the burial place, that they might be not altogether without comfort when they had finally deposited him in the earth. Both deserved shooting, said the Justice of the Peace philosophically; and himself was one of the funeral party.

In a tobacconist's here among specimens of ore is an object labelled "Burr from the pinetree on which Pennsyltuck was hanged" Pennsyltuck was so called because Pennsylvania and Kentucky somehow shared the honour of raising him. He was a bad lot, so bad that the citizens at length determined to promptly relieve him and themselves of his noxious existence. Accordingly, without any tedious legal preliminaries, they took him forth and hanged him on a pine tree, and there left him. As the night was very cold, some one suggested that it was doubtful whether Pennsyltuck met his death by strangulation or freezing. As the citizens on cool reflection thought it wise to discourage Lynch law, they generally agreed to consider that he had been frozen to death.

As to the drinking, one anecdote (true or not) will suffice. An officer sent out to cater for some division of the army in the West returned with six wagonloads of whisky and one of provisions. The commanding