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 The Green? Bag

678 the

jury brought in a

verdict of

guilty. Again naturally, the case of Sixty-ﬁve

Million People v. A. Vagabond, indicted burglar, came to an end with a sentence

of six months in the House of Detention for the Vagabond.

And that was how the disagreeing jury failed to disagree. At the House of Detention, Amos Vagabond vehemently protested his innocence and he was sympathetically given generous jail liberties. However,

the deputy warden and the jailor differed in their views as to his honesty.

To decide a wager on the question, the oﬁicers instituted a “frame-up,” giving the prisoner abundant oppor tunity to appropriate a small sum of

money where detection seemed im possible. The wager was satisfactorily de termined. ii The question as to whether or not

Amos took the money will be left with the reader to consider as an interesting sociological speculation, along

with the Query: Was the accused tried and convicted by the jury, or by the federal judge?

The Case of Josiah Phillips By WILLIAM ROMAINE TYREE on THE HALIFAX COUNTY BAR or VIRGINIA

But to leave thisqgrave fault of our N glancing over the ﬁles of Colonial legal records, one is struck with the severity of punishment meted out to the prisoner of that period. In those early days of the commonwealth, grand

larceny and horse-stealing, with murder

modern civilization, and to turn to those

of interest of Colonial days, is only a step of a few years to one who follows the legal maxim stare decisis. For instance, there comes to light the

and robbery, were punished with death; and rarely were there interposed ob stacles of the sentiment which pervades

case of one Josiah Phillips, "late of the

the criminal annals of today.

the neighborhood in which he practised his crimes, and who was indicted by a

Such a

state of the law governing crimes as we ﬁnd in America in our own generation,

can only be charged to the lax system of criminal procedure which protects those of wealth and inﬂuence, and sends too swiftly to the gallows, the chair,

or a nearby limb the unfortunate wretch who is unable to make a satisfactory de fense—thus balancing delinquencies of one day with the undue severity of another.

parish of Lynhaven, in the county of Princess Anne,” for long a scourge to

grand jury of the General Court of Vir

ginia on the 9th of May, in the year 1778, for robbery, tried, found guilty and hung. Were this all of the Phillips case, the order entered by the court would be lost

in oblivion among the many records of forgotten causes; but it is given promi

nence by reason of its being, as far as I can ascertain, the ﬁrst, if not the only,