Litchfield enquirer., 1831-10-13

allKe unavalIIng; about the neck of his horror-stricken enemy, he bound the life- less body of her, whom violence had brought to dishonor. and untimely death. Under the eye of God alone, in the glare of the meridian sun, and the deep gloom of midnight, through the mazes of the forest, and the dangers of the morass, day after day, in death-like silence the Indian urged on his victim, until humanity sunk, under coDgregated horrors. Hunger, keen and enduring, gnawed his vitals, and presented but death, or an alternative more revolting, and fearful. Nature asserted her domin- ion, and he repressed the awful approach- es of dissolution, by tearing that mangled burden, which hung fostering on his bo- som. Then thirst, like devouring fire, consumed his blood, and despair and fren- zy closed the scene.
 l ANECDOTES OF SIR MATTHEW HALE.
 The following anecdotes of Sir M. Hale may be relied upon as authentic, since they are extracted from a sketch of his life by his contemporary, the celebrated Bishop Burnet :-
 1 In his youth, his fencing master having told him that he could teach him no more, for he was now better at his own trade than himself was, MT. Hale looked on it as 1attery: SO to make the master discov- err himself, he promised him the house he lived in. (for he was his tenant,) if he could hit him blow on the head; and .bade him do his best, for he would be as good as his word; so after little engage ment, his master being really superior to him, hit him on the head, and he perform ed his promise; for he gave him the house freely: and was not unwilling at that rate to learn so early, to distinguish Aattery from plain and simple truth.
 Passing from the extreme of vanity in his apparel, to that of neglecting himself too much, he was once taken when there was a press for the kings service, as fit person for it for he was strong and we'll built man: but some that knew him com ing by, and giving notice who he was, the pressmen let him go. This made him re- turn to more decency in his clothes, but never to any superduity or vanity in them. Once as he was buying some cloth for new suit, the draper, with whom he differ ed about the price, told him he should have Fit for nothing, if he would promise him a hundred pounds when he came to be lord chief justice of England to which he an- swered, that he could not with good con- science wear any mans clothes, unless he paid for it; so he satisfied the draper, and carried away the cloth. Yet that same draper lived to see him advanced to the same dignity.
 His conduct on one occasion, when on the bench, was somewhat censured as an affectation of an unreasonable strictness, but it flowed from his exactness to the rules he had set himself: gentleman had sent him buck for his table, that had trial at the assizes, so when he heard his name he asked If he was not the same person that had sent him venison ;" and finding he was the same, he told him " He could not suffer the trial to go on, till he had paid him for his buck ;" to which the gentle man answered, "That he never sold his venison, and that he had done nothing to him, which he did not do to every judge that had gone that circuit ;'' which was confirmed by several gentlemen then pres ent: but all would not do, for the lord chief baron had learned from Solomon that " a gift perverteth the ways of judg- ment," and therefore he would not suffer the trial to go on, till he had paid for the present; upon which the gentleman with drew the record and at Salisbury the dean and chapter having according to the cus- tom presented him with six sugar-loaves in his circuit, he made his servants pay for the sugar before he would try their case.
 1t is a custom for the marshal of the kings bench to present the judges of that court with piece plate for new years gift, that for the chief justice being larger than the rest. This Sir Matthew intended to have refused, but the other judges told him, it belonged to his office, and the refus- ing it would be prejudice to his success sors, so he was persuaded to take it; but he sent word to the marshal, That in- stead of plate he should bring him the val ue of it in money" and when he received it, he immediately sent it to the prisons, for the relief and discharge Of the poor there. After he was made judge, he would needs pay more for every purchase he made than it was worth; if it had been horse he vas to buy, he would have ont-bid the price and when some represented to him, l" That he made i'll bargains,' he said, IL became judges to pay more for what they bought. than the true value that so those with whom they dealt, might not think they had any right to their favor, by having sold such things to them at an easy rate.