USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > The old court house : reminiscences and anecdotes of the courts and bar of Cincinnati > Part 24
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With this preliminary, quite necessary to fully under- stand, I have the following story to tell of one of my suc- cessors in office. The judges of the old Court of Common Pleas were surprised one day by the prosecuting attorney's asking to enter a nolle prosequi on two indictments against a defendant for murder in the first degree by poisoning. The presiding judge asked the reason-the grand jury being present in court ready to make a final report of a batch of indictments. The prosecuting attorney arose in his place and said to the court that the present grand jury would report two other indictments in lieu of the two which he desired to nolle. Without asking further, the presiding judge remarked that, that being the case, the
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nolle prosequi might be entered upon the minutes of the court, and this was, by order of the court, accordingly done, and two other indictments for the same poisoning crimes were accordingly reported, endorsed "true bills" by the grand jury. All this being through, the presiding judge had the curiosity to ask, not the prosecuting attor- ney himself, but the more intelligent assistant prosecuting attorney, privately, the why and wherefore of such an anomalous proceeding, and the assistant said that those two first indictments made out by the prosecuting attorney were fatally defective in describing the corpus delicti, and would not have stood fire for a single moment, and the fatal defects were first fortunately discovered by himself, after the indictments had been reported by the grand jury, for not fully confiding in the legal acumen of his princi- pal in a matter so important, he conceived it his duty to examine the indictments after they were reported, and he then discovered the great mistakes in them. Of these he said he immediately informed the prosecuting attorney, but the latter was obstinate and obdurate, and boldly insisted that the indictments were right and drawn strictly accord- ing to law. The assistant replied that he well knew they were not correct indictments. The prosecuting attorney lustily contended that they were all right-he knew they were all right. The assistant as lustily contended to the contrary, and almost a quarrel ensued.
At last the prosecuting attorney said, in angry tri- umph over the assistant :
"They were good indictments-he knew they were good indictments, for he had copied them word for word, except the names, from Alf Carter's indictments in similar poisoning cases."
"I'll bet you," said the assistant, "you didn't."
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" I'll bet you anything you want, I did," rejoined the principal.
" Well," said the assistant, " I want a new hat-I will bet you a six-dollar new silk hat, that you did not copy accurately, if you did take them from Carter's indictments."
"Agreed," replied the principal, and forthwith the parties repaired to the records, and found the Carter in- dictments, and on comparing them with the defective ones written up by the prosecuting attorney, it was found that at least thirteen written lines describing the body of the crime incorporated in the Carter indictments, were wholly left out in the two defective indictments, and the alarming and startling fact was pointed out, and at last recognized by the now alarmed and startled prosecuting attorney, and he tremblingly declared :-
" What a mistake I have made-why, look here, I see how it is-I see how I made the mistake-see, here are the words-' deliberate and premeditated malice'- in the tenth line, at the beginning, and then here are the same words at the beginning of the twenty-third line. In my copying I must have skipped the whole thirteen lines and wrote right on."
"That is exactly what you did, you wrote right on, but not rightly on ;" quickly retorted the assistant, "and now I want my hat."
The hat was paid, as was deserved, and this timely discovery of the assistant prosecuting attorney, well illus- trated the truth of the old maxim-that "two heads are better than one, if one is a sheep's head," as in the case at bar !
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THE PROSECUTING WITNESS WHO TOOK THE PROSECUT- ING ATTORNEY BY SURPRISE, AND THE FINAL TRIUMPH !
A man by the name of Elijah Wood had been in- dicted by the grand jury for forgery-forging the name of James Ludlum to a promissory note for eleven hundred dollars. The evidence before the grand jury had been plain and conclusive for finding the bill of in- dictment " a true bill." Old Dr. Ludlum, then extensively known by advertisement, had sworn that the signature to the promissory note, of his name, was not his hand- writing, and was a direct forgery, and that it had been executed by the defendant Wood, who was also generally well known as a rascal. The day of trial came on in the old Common Pleas Court room, and the prosecuting attorney was ready for the State, and lawyer Storer was ready for the defence of Wood. The jury was sworn, and Dr. Ludlum, the prosecuting witness was called to the witness stand, and duly sworn. The forged promis- sory note was placed in the hands of the witness, and he was asked if the signature was his handwriting, by the prosecuting attorney.
Tho old doctor took the note in his hand, and put on his spectacles, and looked and looked at the signature, and held it up and down, and examined it and re- examined it, and at last, said : "Mister Prosecuting Attorney, I swore before the grand jury that this signature was not mine, but I am convinced, and am compelled now to say, that it is my signature!"
" What? what?" exclaimed the State officer ; "what, Doctor Ludlum !"
Witness-"The signature is my handwriting, but I
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declare, I never put it to that promissory note. I remember nothing at all about the note. I never gave such a note to the prisoner, Elijah Wood, and never had any business transaction with him. I do now remember and recollect that the fellow Wood, came to me one day at the town of Carthage, where I lived, and the defend- ant lived too, and got me to sign my name to a petition for the pardon of some fellow out of the penitentiary, and I remember I was the first signer, as there were no other names to the written petition, and this is all the time I ever signed my name for Elijah Wood."
The prosecuting attorney now took the note, in his great surprise, and set to work examining it closely, and holding it up between his eyes and the light, he thought he discovered and discerned the words " Your Excellency" almost entirely obliterated however, just above the date of the promissory note. But he did not break out about it, and he kept it to himself, and went on examining the witness as if nothing remarkable had happened.
It came the time for cross-examination, and Mr. Storer did that thoroughly, and really broke down the State's case, for he made the prosecuting witness say at last, that he might have signed the note in a moment of absent mindedness. In the meantime the prosecuting attorney sent a forthwith subpoena for the celebrated chemist, Dr. Locke, and after the cross-examination of the prosecuting witness was through, Dr. Locke arrived in the court, and the State officer called him to the witness stand to the surprise of Mr. Storer and his client, for the chemist was an entirely new and novel witness. The State's attorney then proceeded to examine Dr. Locke, touching the fact, and the mode and manner of obliterat- ing ink writing upon white paper. And the doctor
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testified that it could be done, and told how, and by what chemicals it could be done. The prosecuting attorney then handed the witness a magnifying glass and the forged promissory note, and told him to examine the document, and see if there had been at any time, other writing upon the paper. The witness examined at once, and examined thoroughly, and finally said : "The paper of that promissory note has been written on before, and the previous writing has been obliterated or erased or extracted, and I now discern some remnants of the pre- vious writing, and if I mistake not, there are the words ' Your Excellency' obscurely remaining at the apparent blank top of the note."
" That's it-that's it," exclaimed the State's attorney in delighted triumph, " and here gentlemen of the jury, take the note and the magnifying glass, and each one of you examine for himself." The note and magnifying glass were handed over to the jury, and the result was convincing and convicting, and now all the other evidence in the case for the State, and for the defence, and the speeches of counsel amounted to little or nothing, and the jury found a verdict of "guilty, as charged in the indict- ment." So much for the triumphs of science in the law. Lawyers all should be men somewhat addicted to science, as well as-law ! scientific lawyers-so to speak !
HOW THE DEFENCE WAS SURPRISED BY A FRIENDLY WITNESS.
In another celebrated forgery case in the old Court of Common Pleas, the counsel for the defence and the defendant himself were much-very much surprised. The testimony for the State did not make out a very plain case against the defendant, and if the counsel for the
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defendant had called no witnesses, he might readily have acquitted his client. But he desired to make doubt surety. He was taken by surprise, alas! There was much doubt as to whether the alleged forged promissory note was forged or genuine. Experts to prove it a forg- ery had only been called by the State, and their evidence, as lawyers and judges well know, is always somewhat un- reliable, and should not, of itself, convict any one. But the counsel was extremely anxious to triumph in the complete innocence of his client, and he called to the witness stand as first witness, a friendly member of the firm upon whom the note was forged, to prove it genuine. The friendly witness took the note in his hand, and tremblingly ex- amined it, and at last fearfully exclaimed :- " My God, gentlemen, this is a forgery!" And this was enough- this convinced every body, and convicted the prisoner.
HOW THE STATE MADE OUT HER CASE, BY THE EVIDENCE FOR THE DEFENCE.
I remember a singular case of a trial for the larceny of some bank notes, for the defence in which the eminent ability of lawyer John Brough was engaged. The evidence for the State against the prisoner had closed, and left it extremely doubtful, whether a crime had been committed at all, by the prisoner. The prosecuting witness had evidently lost a considerable sum of money, all in bank notes, and they were found in the possession of the defendant, but it was extremly doubtful whether they had been stolen, or were honestly found by the defendant, with the intention of honestly restoring them. The prosecuting witness could not swear that they were stolen, or no other witness for the State, and the prose- cuting attorney was about to give up the case, when to
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his great surprise, the counsel for defense without moving for a discharge of the prisoner, as he ought to have done and successfully ; called John Hawk a dilapidated looking witness, who it seems was a hawk by nature as well as name, as a witness for the defence, to the witness stand- and proved by him the character of the defendant as being that of an honest man, and stopped further questioning. The State's attorney now took the witness to cross-examine, and literally took hold of him, and sifted him thoroughly, and learning from his testimony that he was a pot companion of the prisoner, succeeded in proving by him, that on a certain time in the night, when the prosecuting witness was in a crowd at a mass meeting, the defendant stole the bank notes from the side pocket of their owner, and possessor, and on this testi- mony of the corpus delicti, the prisoner was convicted, and without which, he could not possibly have been convicted. Moral, to lawyers as well as all-let well enough alone ! or citing the language of Falstaff : " save me from my friends." Amen !
GEORGE E. PUGH,-A LAWYER OF WONDERFUL MEMORY.
One of the most able, intellectual and brilliant law- yers I ever knew was George E. Pugh, who was admitted to practice law in the days of the old court house, and was for several years a member of its bar of talented lawyers. His memory was most remarkable, and many times he would astonish the court by citing principles of law, and book, and case, and page, without the presence of the book, or notes, or brief, of his own.
On one occasion he was all alone, engaged in the de- fence of a celebrated case involving a great part of the Elmore Williams estate, and on the plaintiff's side, against
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him, were those two distinguished lawyers Thomas Ewing and Henry Stanberry. The long table before the bench was filled with a hundred law books, placed there by the plaintiff's lawyers, and from them, taking each one up and reading, Mr. Stanberry cited his cases and occupied sev- eral hours in so doing. Mr. Pugh replied to Mr. Stan- berry, and without brief or notes, or taking up, or reading, from a single law book, he cited from his own memory all that Mr. Stanberry had quoted, and then, in addition, cited more than thirty different law books-cases, princi- ples, and points and names of cases, and pages of books where they were to be found, on his own side of the case, without in a single instance, using books, notes, or briefs. It was truly a most unique and remarkable mental per- formance, and after he got through, the presiding judge of the court called Mr. Pugh to him to the bench and asked him "how in the world he did it?" Pugh modestly replied, "Oh, for these matters I always trust to my mem- ory, and while that serves me, I want no books or briefs before me." What a valuable memory ! By it, too, Pugh won his case, as he did many others.
LAWYER PUGH AND HART, AND THE PROSECUTING ATTORNEY.
Lawyers George E. Pugh, and Sam Hart were brothers-in-law, and once together in the partnership of law, and they constituted a great firm, a very great firm of legal lore, and acumen. They frequently ap- peared in court together, particularly in important criminal cases. Pugh, or "George," as in his young days he used to be familiarly called, was gifted, and a more bright, luminous, and intellectual man and lawyer never perhaps was at our bar; but he was sometimes
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arrogant and supercilious in his conduct in managing his cases. Hart was also very bright, and he was pompous and demanding, and exacting frequently in his conduct. On one occasion, they were together engaged in the management of the defence in a celebrated murder case, and the case in the testimony was pretty plain, and con- vincing, and convicting as against their client, and in this important respect, the prosecuting attorney felt, and knew that he had the decided advantage of his adversa- ries. Hart was very pompous, and full of fuss and feathers in his conduct of the case; and Pugh was more arrogant and supercilious in his behavior towards the State's attorney, than he ever was before, and at last, the joint behavior of Hart and Pugh made the prosecuting attorney mad, and he jumped up in his place, and said to court and jury : "That if this pomposity and fuss and feathers on the one hand, and dogmatic arrogance and haughty superciliousness, on the other, were not put an end to at once, he would ask for the intervention of the court."
"Why," said the State's attorney, " here we have General Bombastes Furioso, who would be captain of everything, and we have too, Jupiter Tonans, who hurls his thunderbolts, without, however any lightning, or any enlightening of anybody, and what a mephitic smell of arrogance and superciliousness he raises, it is a positive stench-OH! PUGH !! I beg the gentlemen to hold his arrogant, mephitic wind. I do not see how he has the heart to do it.
This timely sally put an end to further trouble, and the intervention of the court was not necessary. The State's attorney was safe !
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BRIBES TO PROSECUTING ATTORNEYS.
The office of State's Attorney has always been, and is one of the most important of all the offices in the county. For the most part, in the history of Hamilton county, it has been filled by young lawyers, and I am happy in being enabled to remark that for the most part, it has been faithfully, honestly, and capably filled. I have never known of any case of bribery of our prosecuting attorneys-although I once had occasion to strongly suspect such a case. But fellows, or rather fellers would willingly bribe the prosecuting attorney if they could, and all sorts of ways are resorted to by parties interested, to get on the better side of the State's officer. I shall narrate two instances in my own experience : When I was prosecut- ing attorney, I had occasion, one day, to go into a large jewelry store, to see about repairing my watch. The jeweler treated me very politely, and taking my watch, he said : "Why, you ought to carry a better watch than this, occupying the position you do," and he took from his case a beautiful gold watch, and begged me to accept it as a present from him, and a slight token of good will. I refused the gift in wonderment why it was offered, and did not find out, until the next meeting of the grand jury, when I found that a near relative-a brother of this same jeweler, had to be indicted for forgery, and he was so indicted, and tried and convicted, and sent to the peniten- tiary for four years. On another occasion, I was sur- prised by one of the most respectable men in this city putting into my hand, on my shaking hands with him, ten ten-dollar gold pieces. I did not take them into my hand, but left them in his, much against his will. After- ' wards I found that this respectable and honorable (?) gen-
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tleman was much and particularly and peculiarly inter- ested in the trial of some four fellows for burglary. But they were all convicted, and sent where they belonged.
THE DEPUTY SHERIFF ! !!
In these growing and grown reminiscences and an- ecdotes, it is now high time I should " come to Hecuba," -it is quite time to seize the opportunity to record some- thing of the remarkable doings, and sayings of that long- serving and long-standing (in his shoes and in office) deputy sheriff of the old court house of the olden time- that queer, quaint, sometimes querulous, never quarrel- some, -that simple, sincere, solid, sober, sometimes serious, but never sanctimonious, always social odd fellow and important personage, well known to all of yore, and christened and surnamed
JOHN STALEE !!
Among judges, officials of court and lawyers, he used to be the man of all men. In person he was long, lank and limber. He stood fully six feet high in his shoes, and when aroused in the performance of duty, fully six feet higher. His legs were long, his arms were long, his body was long, and his head was long in every sense. He was just a little stooped in the shoulders, from his habit of thinking so much of his duties, and thus car- rying his head forward and downward. His face, features, and lines of head were a model for the sculptor or the painter, and would well have served as a subject or an object for the poet and philosopher. The top of his head, where the hair ought to grow, like that of Old Uncle Ned, was cleanly, clearly, and scrupulously bald, so that it showed and shone like polished porcelain, and looked
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like it might have been the bottom of a white china saucer turned upside down and set in a circle of hair around the edges. His bald pate shining at the sheriff's desk, daily and hourly and minutely, was something like the sun, and shed light on the lawyers and things around. Everybody knew Stalee when his hat was off, and this was always doffed, except when on duty out-doors in the streets of the city. His face was oval-formed, with a high, bright forehead, large, aquiline nose, (after the style of old Grimes, from all accounts of him,) small, grey-blue, penetrating eyes, when particularly directed, and a hand- some mouth and chin, and his complexion was pale and sallow. His neck, which held up his head, when it was held up, and that was seldom, on account of his reflecting sense of duties, was somewhat long before, but quite short behind, and an Adam's apple looked like it was going to issue sprouts from his throat. His was a remarkable and conspicuous figure at the sheriff's desk in the court room of the old court house; and that figure stood and was maintained there for more than a quarter of a century ; for, no matter for the changes of politics, no matter for the changes of sheriffs, democratic, Whig, Know-nothing or otherwise, Stalee, the deputy sheriff, was a necessity, and no sheriff could, possibly, practically get along with- out him. He commenced being deputy sheriff away back in the last of the twenties, under Sheriff Avery ; was con- tinued by Sheriff's Hulse, Fosdick, Garrard, Smith, Wea- ver, and the rest who succeeded, and, living up to Know- nothing times, even in the days of the beginning of the new court house, he was continued deputy sheriff in his old age, by my persuasion, and at my instance, when judge of the court, by Gassaway Brashears, then the com- petent and able sheriff of Hamilton county, elected by the
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Know-nothings. So that he lived and died the deputy sheriff. No official, and no person, ever knew more about a court house-the court itself-the judges, the lawyers, and all the duties of all the officials, in addition to the sheriff's, than did young, matured, and old John Stalee. No officer of court, ever performed his duties more intelligently, more willingly, and more efficiently than our old friend. No person ever understood and appreciated the respect and regard due to a court better than Stalee, and when the court ordered Stalee to do a thing it was done. Never was there even a scintilla of disobedience of the orders of the court charged to his account. To obey was his life and his law: to do his duty was a part of his soul. Such a character as described, of course, must have been singular and pecu- liar, original and unique ; and no one perhaps was ever found like him.
" He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.""
STALEE, AND THE LOST HYMN-BOOK.
While Stalee was serving as deputy sheriff, under Sheriff Samuel Fosdick, (who by the way is yet living, a good and respectable citizen, among us,) many years ago-in the days of the old court house- to keep the pot boiling for himself and family, (for Mr. Stalee was a good husband and father ;) he was also employed on Sabbath days as the sexton for the New Jerusalem (or Swedenborgian) church, situated on Longworth street, in this city, and as the sexton of that church he scrupulously attended to his Sunday duties, as he did to those of the deputy sheriff on week days. One Sunday morning, as was his usual custom, the Rev. Mr. DeCharms, pastor
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of the church, came to the church early, before the bells began to ring, and before the congregation began to assemble, and Stalee, the sexton was there-on duty. The pastor went up into his pulpit to arrange the pages of the Holy Bible, and the hymn book, and the Liturgy, for the morning's sermon. With the Bible there was no difficulty ; it was there in its place upon the velvet cushion of the pulpit, and was easily accessible, and the pastor fixed its pages for his text all right. So with the Liturgy ; it was there, and it was fixed all right by the careful preacher. Meantime, Stalee was busy before the pulpit, fixing things. The hymn-book, all scarlet bound and gilded as it was known to be, was next looked after by the pastor, in order to dog's-ear the pages therein for the hymns appropriate to the character of the sermons he was to deliver, but the aforesaid book of hymns could not be found anywhere in the body of the pulpit. " Mister Stalee," the pastor called out, "where is the hymn- book?"
Stalee-" Why, isn't it in the pulpit, where it ought to be?"
Pastor-" No, it is not here. Find it for me."
Commanded, Stalee instantly obeyed, and he com- menced searching for the missing hymn-book. He first went up into the pulpit, and searched all over there, think- ing that the pastor might have made a mistake about it. But it was not there. He came down and went all about the pulpit, but no hymn-book ; he groped over the floors, the aisles, and the corners of the church, but no success. He now commenced at the pews, went into them and out of them, tumbling up the soft cushions, looking under the seats and on the carpets and under the carpets, but noth- ing but failure.
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"Why," said Mr. Stalee, "the book is nowhere to be found."
Pastor-" Find it, Mister Stalee."
Stalee was dumbfounded. But there was a high gallery full of seats in the back part of the church, and places for the organ and choir of singers, and at last Stalee bethought himself to climb thither and look. So he mounted the stairs and looked, and he looked through all the seats for the audience, and for the choir, and he looked before the organ, and he looked behind the organ, and about the belly of the organ, and the bellows of the organ, but not the sacred hymn-book could he find. " Where in the world could it be?" Solilo- quized the sexton, instead of Hamlet. " Alas, poor hymn- book !" There was a ridge of blue-green silk curtains, in folds, hanging on iron posts and wires attached to the top of the balustrade of the gallery just before the organ, to conceal the singers from the too peering view of per- sons in the audience ; and just as the first one or two of the coming congregation, while the church bells of the city were ringing, were entering the holy precincts of the church, our friend Stalee, at last espied the coveted and long-looked-for sacred hymn-book, in all its scarlet and gilt (not spelt with a " ""), lying at the top of the balus- trade, concealed somewhat by the prominent folds of the silk curtains. He sprang, he jumped and he seized the prize, and holding it aloft in his right hand, and stooping over from the edge of the gallery to the pastor in the pulpit, in a loud and exultant voice he exclaimed ;
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