USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > The old court house : reminiscences and anecdotes of the courts and bar of Cincinnati > Part 16
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fudge Bob (a little nettled)-" Most willingly. The prisoner was discharged from jail on proceedings in habeas corpus, instituted before me, because the mittimus or commitment from the magistrate did not designate on its face, what kind of bank notes the prisoner had coun- terfeited."
Prosecuting Attorney-" Was that legally necessary to be incorporated in a merc mittimus of a justice of the peace?"
Fudge Bob-" The court was clearly of the opinion, at the time of the proceedings in habeas corpus, insti- tuted as aforesaid, that it was absolutely necessary."
Prosecuting Attorney-" How so, may it please your Honor ?"
Fudge Bob-" How so? Why, the mittimus did not read what kind of a bank the counterfeit note was on. There are various kinds of banks, and it might have been a sand bank."
Prosecuting Attorney-"Was your Honor at the circus night before last? I believe I saw you there, and you were interested in the clown, Sol. Lipman, who told
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the story to his ring-master, that he owned a bank, and when the master asked him what kind of a bank it was, he replied a sand bank, to the infinite amusement and loud laughter and applause of the numerous spectators, among whom I pleasantly recognized Judge Robert Moore especially delighted. If the clown of a circus is authority in this court, I would like timely, to be aware of it. If the reports of wise Solomon Lipman, of Rockwell's circus or circuit, are to prevail in this court house as pre- cedent and authority, it is high time for the State's at- torney and the lawyers of this bar to know it. It is high time for us all to enter the arena."
The court were so amused at the sally, that they did not stop the prosecuting attorney, and Judge Moore, not a whit discomposed or decomposed, took the matter good naturedly and laughed with the rest. But the prose- cuting attorney-he was mad.
LAWYER DEMPSEY AND ANIMO FURANDI.
In my recollections I must not forget little lawyer Dempsey. His first name I do not recollect. No matter ; he was Dempsey, and nothing but Dempsey, for his peculiar characteristics could not belong to any other. He was Dempsey, by himself, at all times, all through, and all over. He was diminutive, sanguine, nervous, and wiry, a very dapper little fellow. He was thin and cadaverous, and on the top of his head he wore his flam- ing mountain of prickly, sticky, thorny, brick-red hair, which stuck out on all sides of his head and the sides of his face, and made him, when he was speaking, with his swift and rapid motions of head, legs, and arms, remind you of a comet or meteor in full glare, blaze and blast. His ability was not high, not gorgeous ; not as brilliant as
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his prickly, thorny hair, and for this reason, though he made a peculiar shining mark as a lawyer, he never made a profound legal re-mark in court or anywhere. He was not qualified for the higher walks of the law, though in a burlesque sense he was well qualified for the lower walks of the dram-ah ! He confined himself in his practice to criminal cases before the courts, and civil cases before justices of the peace. He was not a scholar, a classical scholar, or a profound scholar, or any kind of a scholar. He knew not the Latin tongue, " not a touch of it," and was bothered with the Latin phrases of the learned law, as the following will well manifest.
Dempsey was employed to defend a prisoner who had been indicted by the grand jury for " stealing, taking, and carrying away " a pair of shoes or brogans, the prop- erty of a certain shoemaker, and the trial was set and came on a certain day, before the court and jury. The witnesses for the State and for the defence were duly examined. The evidence for the State was plain and direct, and plainly convicted the prisoner of petit larceny, for which he was indicted. What should Dempsey do? He had prepared his testimony, and he called his witnesses to prove that his client was drunk-so drunk as he himself was fain to believe, that he did not know what he had been about in the appropriation to his own use of the aforesaid pair of shoes, the property of another. He did prove by the prisoner's witnesses that he (the prisoner) never was a sober man, and this was sufficient for Demp- sey, as he exultingly thought and expressed himself. The prosecuting attorney made his argument, and now it came Dempsey's turn to address the jury. He had a peculiarly shrill voice-enough to scare a fellow when in full screeching tone. He began, and he went on assert-
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ing all sorts and manner of things in behalf of his client, and at last came to his great point. "Gentlemen of the jury," he shrieked, "a man can not be guilty of larceny, of stealing, without the presence at the time of commit- ting the aforesaid deed, of any more fury andy, as the law books have it, without any more fury andy! WITH- OUT ANY MORE FURY ANDY !! Without the fury and- and animosity against the proprietor and owner of the goods, requisite and necessary to constitute a felony in the meaning and celebrated language of the books. For this, may it please the court and gentlemen of the jury, I have great and large quantities of precedents, and I could cite before you volume after volume of the highest and most eminent authorities of law and jurisprudence. No, gentlemen of the jury, any more fury andy-any more fury andy, there was not any more fury andy, when my client took those aforesaid pair of shoes-he was too drunk to have any more fury andy. He had lots of the fury animosity of furious whisky, no doubt, but who is free from that? 'Let him that is without sin cast the first bowlder,' and answer me that, gentlemen of this most intelligent and respectable jury ! There was lots of whisky, but there was not any more fury andy-not any more -- no furiousness ! it was all whisky !"
And Dempsey sat down in triumph to himself, but not to last for a long space of time, for the jury were out only a few minutes when they brought in a verdict of "guilty," and Dempsey and his client, and his red hair, and his "any more fury andy" wilted, and he left the court, leaving his left and cleft client to his fate and his sentence to the chain-gang, as was customary in those days.
It will be remembered by those out of the law, as
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well as those in it, that as the law authorities say, and good common sense says too, a man can not be guilty of stealing without at the time of "taking and carrying away," he has the felonious intent. He must do it with a mind of stealing-" animo furandi," as the Latin law term has it-and this "animo furandi" was the phrase that much bothered our friend Dempsey. He would much rather have it in English-and so he went on in his speech, producing conviction in the minds of the jury of the necessity of the conviction of his poor client.
PERRY & STUART-DODSON AND FOGG. THE
NOBLE PERRY !
Standing in the catalogue of small-fry lawyers there were others than Dempsey of early days. There was Toby Stuart, there was Cunningham, there was the noble Perry, not he of naval fame, but he of somewhat novel fame. Dickens must have seen him when he visited this country, and our court and bar, and wrote his "Dodson ;" and he saw also Stuart and he wrote his "Fogg," and as Perry and Stuart were partners in the law, and consti- tuted a firm, so also were "Dodson & Fogg" partners, and constituted a celebrated firm. This sort of men will always belong to the bar; and why not? Are they not representative? Have they not clients, and do they not represent them? What would poor, low law humanity do, without these "shysters," their representatives? In- deed, they are a necessity, and do a great deal of good, if they do once in a while some little harm. I have a remarkable instance in mind of the good the shyster can and does often accomplish. A long while ago a poor devil, arrested for mere assault and battery, was commit- ted to jail by one of our justices of the peace, in order
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that his case might go before the grand jury for indict- ment. Well, grand jury after grand jury met and adjourned, and the poor prisoner yet remained in jail, and there he remained in close confinement, wholly deprived of his liberty, for the space of a whole year, and all this owing to the inadvertence and neglect of the then prosecuting attorney and other officials. Here was this poor unknown man then, for a whole year suffering in the bars of a loathsome prison on the mere charge of assault and battery, all on account of the want of a law- yer to attend to him and his case. Lawyer Perry, senior of the distinguished firm of Perry & Stuart-" Dodson & Fogg"-was making his customary perambulations among the multitude of prisoners, through the corridors of the jail, looking for a case and a small fee. He came, by merest accident, across the poor, insignificant, unknown, and lone man, and Perry addressed him :
"Well, my friend, what are you here for?"
Unknown-" Well, I reckon I don't know. I have been here just one year and one day, and I'll be blamed if I can tell what I am here for." (Of course the prisoner had counted the days, the hours, and the min- utes, perhaps.)
Perry-" Have you got any money?"
Unknown-"No! [showing his more than empty pockets], and that is the reason, I reckon, they keep me here."
Perry-" Well, have you got anything?"
Unknown-" Yes, I have got this 'ere old watch and key [pulling them out-an old brass watch and a brass key-of an old watch-fob and showing them to Perry] and I have wound her up every night, and she keeps mighty good time, I tell you." (All this long time that
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poor victim had nothing else to do, perhaps, than attend to that watch, his old and only companion.)
Perry-" Let me see it. [And he took the watch and key into his lawyer hands.] I will tell you what I'll do. If you give me this as my fee, I will get you out of here."
Unknown-" How can you do that?"
Perry-"They can't put you in jail and keep you this way, for nothing."
Unknown-" Well, I'll be d-d if they haven't got me in jail, and I am still here, by thunder !"
Perry-"True ; I am a lawyer, and I will get you out, if you give me this watch."
Unknown-" Well, I hate to part with it; (this was said tearfully,) but if I must, I must, that's all ! So take it."
Perry took the brass watch and brass key, and armed with brass, out of the jail he went right to the prosecuting attorney's office and immediately laid the whole grievance of his long ill-treated client to the good- natured, though sometimes hard-hearted (apparently so), prosecuting attorney. He went over to the jail with Perry ; saw the man ; heard his story ; inquired into the matter from the jailer, and seeing that all was as had been stated, he ordered the immediate release of the prisoner. The prisoner donned his coat and hat, and with his now and new companion and friend, Perry, he started out, and quickly got clear of jail, and being clearly out of limbo, out of pure and human and humane sympathy, lawyer and companion and friend, Perry invi- ted him to the nearest coffee-house to take a drink to celebrate his own triumph and his client's day of deliv- erance. So much for the good a "shyster" can, and did
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do. There is none so poor among us, but who is capable of good.
THE OLD COURT OF COMMON PLEAS AND THE IRISH LAWYER.
The old Court of Common Pleas had a singular and peculiar Irish attorney at the bar, who, like the Irish Galway barrister in the play, gave the Court a good deal of botheration, though he knew little or no law. Right or wrong, he was always for success, and he believed in the philosophy of the saying, that to succeed you must have success, and he frequently regarded the law itself as much interfering with his prospects, and hopes, and real- izations in this regard. He, for the sake of forwarding his case and his success, was much in the habit of flat- tering or blarneying the "Coort," as he called it, in his peculiar Erin-go-bragh style and method. On one occa- sion he was more than anxious for success in his case before the court, and he thus concluded his speech :
"And now, may it please this erudited Coort-this learned and crudited Coort, this more than learned and erudited Coort, I rest the case in your learned and erudited hands." The Court took the papers and decided the case immediately, and right spank against the blarneying Irish attorney, who, in his rapid and readily determined successful defeat, exclaimed : " What a Hill of a Coort! " and left more in anger than in sorrow, the precincts of law and justice.
THE OLD COURT AND "CÆSAR MOONEY."
Cæsar Mooney was as black as the ace of spades, but did not deal in the use of spades for a livelihood. On the contrary, ostensibly, he followed the occupation of a
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local preacher or exhorter-and he had another occupa- tion, and that was stealing hogs in, and about our streets. As I have said in speaking of the cunning and curious hog-thief, Wiley Edwards, the streets and alleys of our city, in the days of the old court house, were highways and by-ways for the hogs and pigs, and none so free as they in walking about-seeking what, if not whom, they might devour. Well, Cæsar Mooney, the colored preacher and exhorter, used to carry a pocket-knife, and every stray hog or pig he might happen to come across, partic- ularly in the night time, he would pursue and catch for a moment, and mark his ear or ears with his own favorite clip, cut or cuts, and then assert his claim of ownership over the hog or pig, in due time. Of course, he was fre- quently caught at these clipping tricks, and was frequently indicted for petit larceny, and tried, and sent to the chain- gang ; but so soon as his term of imprisonment at hard labor was out, he was sure to go at his old occupations again, preaching and hog-stealing. Like Wiley Edwards, his compeer and contemporary in the matter of stealing hogs and pigs about the streets, he always contrived to steal below the value of thirty-five dollars, so as not to be at any time sent to the penitentiary for grand larceny. But at last, in this regard, he was disappointed and un- fortunate. He was indicted for stealing three hogs at one time, and, being tried, the jury convicted him, and assessed the value of the property stolen at thirty-seven dollars, which was, of course, a conviction for grand larceny, and was to consign him, at last, to the peniten- tiary for a term of years. In the criminal department of the Court of Common Pleas, sentence day for the crimi- nals who had been convicted during the term came on, and among the prisoners to be sentenced to the peniten-
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tiary was our colored preacher and exhorter, Cæsar Moo- ney. At last, the sheriff called out, "Cæsar Mooney, stand up," and in the prisoner's box, a tall, gaunt, raw- boned, jet-black darkey stood up, almost to the ceiling, for sentence. The court, or presiding judge, remember- ing well how often Mooney had been tried and sentenced for petit larceny, in stealing hogs before, took occasion to observe, "Well, prisoner Cæsar Mooney, you seem to have been convicted of grand larceny this time, and we, it seems, according to law, will have to send you to the penitentiary. Have you anything to say why the court should not proceed to sentence you?"
Prisoner-" Well, de fac' am, I must hab made a big mistake dis time; I didn't know dem hogs were so durn waluable; I tink de jury made a big mistake in waluing dem so durn much, an' de witnesses, too ! Dem hogs was not worth more dan ten dollars apiece, any cum how."
fudge-" We will have to send you to the peniten- tiary, Mr. Mooney. You, Cæsar, seized too much this time. The hogs were valuable hogs-worth more than ten dollars apiece. It does seem to us that you are, in regard to this matter of hogs, afflicted with kleptomania."
Prisoner-" Well, boss, dat am a fac'. I did clip too many dis time ! Dat am a fac'-shuah ! I done clip too many."
Fudge-" No; you have a mania for hog-stealing, it seems to us."
Prisoner-" Well, I does believe I has done stuck too many dis time, any cum how."
Fudge-" We mean that you are insane upon the subject of hog-stealing. You are, in this respect, a luna- tic Mooney."
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Prisoner-" Yes, bress de Lord, I be a lunatic Moo- ney, shuah ! an' I guess you better put me in de lunacy 'sylum. I will be glad to go dar right away, dis time, 'stead of goin' off to the penitentiary."
Fudge-" But we cannot so oblige you. Mr. Cæsar Mooney, the sentence of the court is, that you be confined in the penitentiary of this State for three years at hard labor."
Prisoner-" Bres de Lor' ! One whole year apiece fo' dem tree durn hogs dis time !"
And Cæsar Mooney had to sit down by the command of the sheriff, and afterwards give the hogs and pigs of Cincinnati a rest of three years from his depredations- of such a peculiar and particular hoggish and piggish sort and kind-and the colored bruddern and sistern a long respite from his sermons and exhortations of such a peculiar and particular grunting and squeaking sort and kind, without a doubt.
YOUNG LAWYER COLLINS AND HIS PROJECTED DUEL WITH THE PROSECUTING ATTORNEY.
In the days of the old bar and the old court house, he, who was so fortunate or unfortunate as to be elected prosecuting attorney, used to have a pretty severe time of it. He was sure to be pitted at and pitched upon in the trials of the criminal department of the Court of Common Pleas, by all the young lawyers particularly, and the old ones in general. There was one prosecuting attorney in my memory, who was completely run out of office and reputation by the legal, foxy tricks and wolfish savagery of the lawyers. They seemed to have combined together all against the poor public prosecutor, and he lost nearly all the cases that he tried before the court, and this quite,
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on account of the legal conspiracy of lawyers against him ; they gave him no peace or rest. They successfully found faults and picked flaws, in all his indictments, so that every -almost every-criminal got off. These repeated and repeated defeats scared the prosecuting attorney out of office, and he was not a candidate before the people again. Sometimes, when some of the young lawyers did not succeed against a prosecuting attorney, they would get personally mad at him, and try to provoke him to all manner and sorts of things, even to fighting a duel! Young Lawyer Collins, a youngster of much ability and talent, and a partner of the then young George E. Pugh. once lost an important criminal case by the verdict of the jury, and he got so infernally mad about it, that he chal- lenged the prosecuting attorney to fight a duel, and the prosecutor being a young man of courage and pluck, would have accepted it, but for the intervention of mutual friends, who persuaded Collins to withdraw the challenge. One of his particular friends, Bob Warden, went to see Collins privately, and have a friendly confidential talk about the matter. "Now, John," said he, "it was not the prosecutor's fault or offense, that you lost that case ; you had too much Bourbon aboard when you were trying the case, and let me tell you more for your private ear- it was whisky and not John Collins, that sent that chal- lenge to the State's attorney, and as whisky sent the obnoxious missive, John Collins must withdraw it;" and John, wisely recognizing the fact in full, withdrew the challenge, and all was quiet on the pot-o'-muck ! stirred up by young Collins-or his whisky -straight-or crooked!
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THE RED PEPPER MASS MEETING AND THE LAWYERS CONCERNED IN IT, IN THE OLD COURT ROOM OF THE OLD COURT HOUSE.
The talented lawyer and intellectual orator, William M. Corry, recognized as a distinctive leader once of a part of the democracy of the county, together with the accurate and accomplished speaker, Ellwood Fisher, and the powerful and smashing stumper, Jacob Flinn, some time in the winter of 1842-3, got up a mass meeting of the democracy in the old court room of the old court house, for the purpose of opposing the nomination of David T. Disney for the State senate, and the regularly- nominated ticket of the Carthage Democratic Conven- tion, generally. Now, the call and the mass meeting were very distasteful and absolutely obnoxious to the regular democrats, and they, with the dissatisfied, assembled by thousands in the old court room, occupying floor and overhanging gallery, and did everything they could by groans, hisses, and cat-calls, to disturb the orators and break up the meeting. But the orators manfully stood their ground, or rather the bench of the old Common Pleas from which they spoke and like Banquo's ghost would not down, at any common thing. Intellectual orator Corry was speaking, and he began, in the midst of elegant and eloquent sentences-to cough and sneeze, and sneeze and cough. Then the president and the vice-presidents and the secretary of the meeting all began to cough and sneeze and sneeze and cough, and then Ellwood Fisher, who was ready with a great speech, and then Jake Flinn who was always prepared to thunder, coughed and sneezed, and sneezed and coughed, and then part of the audience joined in, and finally the whole audience was earnestly engaged
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in a general fit, or particular fits of coughing and sneezing, so that all things else stopped-orator, eloquence and all, to join in the great fact of coughing and sneezing then overwhelmingly triumphant ; and, at last, the fit and fits of the orator, the officers and the people became so extraordinary that nothing else could be done for peace and quiet, than to break up in a row. And the row in- continently occurred ; and there was now coughing and sneezing, and profanity and profanation, and fits and fists and fisticuffs, until everybody was cuffed, buffeted, and scattered out of the court room and out of the court house, for very safety of life and limb. Now, what was all this -the great, first great cause of all this? Why, simply this and nothing more. It was a very cold night, and there was a blazing, roaring fire in the huge stove right under the outside of the gallery, and some one or two or more of the regular Bourbon democracy from the gallery had cast quantities of red pepper down upon the red-hot top of the huge, rectangular, old-fashioned stove; and this was all there was of it-but it was enough! This celebrated mass meeting was ever afterwards called the RED PEPPER MEETING, but what was very curious, you could never find any citizen of Cincinnati who had been personally present at the meeting. Everybody seemed to know all about it, but there were no witnesses to the cor- pus delicti.
THE VISIT OF THE AUTHOR, CHARLES DICKINS, TO THE COURT ROOM OF THE OLD COURT HOUSE.
I shall not forget the visit of "Boz" to the old court room of the old court house. He had arrived as the guest of Judge Timothy Walker, in our city, and Judge Walker being a lawyer, walked the veritable Englishman,
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greatly to his credit, into our court room to show him how things were conducted there. This was in the year 1843. I was a young lawyer, and having been a law student of the judge, I was introduced to the great author. To me then, he appeared like a pale, thoughtful, melancholy young man-and I remember how I wondered that such a melancholy and misanthropic looking man could have been the author of the Pickwick papers. In respect to him, the old court took a recess, and then, of course, there was much hand-shaking, salutation, and gratulation, and congratulation, with the Dickens and members of the bar. It was remarked by some facetious limb of the law, " that lawyers had often been falsely or truthfully accused of cavorting with the devil-now there was proof of the slanderous profanation, for the lawyers had the Dickens with them, and were treating him and with him, like a prince." Judge Walker was evidently in his glory with his guest-showing him around-and the judges and the lawyers were gratified to salute and take by the hand the man who had created those eminent lawyers-Sergeant, Buzz-fuzz, and Dodson & Fogg, so like themselves. This visit of Charles Dickens to the old court and bar was a memorable one, and properly deserves a place in reminiscence.
LAWYERS CHARLES H., AND JOHN BROUGH.
We have had occasion before, to mention judge Charles H. Brough. He and his brother John were com- paratively early lawyers here, and somewhat important personages. They were, I think, born and reared in Marietta. From thence went to Lancaster, and became joint editors of the Ohio Eagle. They then in the winter of 1840-41, after studying law, came to this city and
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bought out the newspaper-the Cincinnati Advertiser- from the venerable Moses Dawson, and changed the name to the Cincinnati Enquirer, which still lives and flourishes as such. Both editors, lawyers, and politicians, John be- came auditor of State, and, in 1842, Charles was elected prosecuting attorney of this county, and a hard, diligent, and vigilant prosecutor he was, too-if anything, too vigilant, too desirous and active, for conviction of poor devils, whether or no. At the breaking out of the Mex- ican war, Charles raised a regiment, and became its colo- nel and, fighting gallantly, returned from the war with much distinction and glory, and was then, by the Legis- lature of our State, made presiding judge of our old Court of Common Pleas. In 1849, while serving on the bench, he was unfortunately and most lamentably the first victim in this city of the dread cholera, which, immedi- ately after his decease, became epidemic here. He de- parted this life in the midst of his notable career, having won much success, honor, and distinction.
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