Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1869-01-22
THE VOLUNTEER COUNSEL.

+ JOHN TAYLOR was licensed, whena youth
/ of twenty one, to practice at the bar. He
was poor, but well educated, and pos
sessed of extraordinary genius. He mar
ried a beauty who afterward deserted him
| for another.
On the 9th of April, 1910, the court
house in ClarkVille, Texas, was crowded
| to OVERLOOKING. An exciting case was
to be tried. George Hopkins, wealthy
planter, had offered gross insult to
| Mary Ellison, the young and beautiful
wife of his overseer. The husband threat
ened to chastise him for the outrage, when
Hopkins. went to Ellison's house and
| shot him in his own door. The murderer
was arrested and bailed to answer the
charge. This occurrence produced great
excitement, and Hopkins, in order to turn
che tide of popular Indignation, had cir
culated reports against her character, and
shehad sued him for SANDER. Both suits
were pendiDg-for murder and SANDER.
The interest became deeper when it
was known that Ashley and Pike, OF Ar
kansas, and s. S. Prentiss, of New Or
leans, by enormous fees, had been re-
tanned to defend Hopkins.
Hopkins was acquitted. The IeXas
lawyers were overwhelmed by their OPP
ponents. It was fight OF adWarf against
giants
/ The SANDER suit was for the 9th, and the
lthrong of spectators grew in numbers as
in excitement. Public opinion was set
ting in for Hopkins; his money had pre-
cured witnesses who served his powerful
advocates. When the SANDER case was
called, Mary Ellison was left without an
attorney-all had withdrawn.
I 90 TTqun counsel =" In0ulreu
Judge Mills, looking kindly on the plain
/ tiff
"No, sir; they have all deserted me,
and [ am too poor to employ any more" "
replied the beautiful Mary, bursting into
tears.
"In such a case, will not some chivalrous
member of the profession volunteer ?" said
the Judge, glancing around the bar.
/. The thirty lawyers were silent.
az will, your honor" said voice from
the thickest part of the crowd, behind the
| bar
At the sound of the voice many started
it was 50 earthly, sweet and mournful
+ The first sensation was changed into
| laughter when tall, gaunt, spectral figure
elbowed his way through the crowd, and
placed himself within the bar. His clothes
looked so shabby that the court hesitated
to let the case proceed under his manage
ment.
"Has your name been entered on the
rolls of the State?" demanded the Judge.
cit is immaterisl," answered the strang
er, his thin, bloodless lips curling up with
a sheer. m la aa
"Here is my license from the highest
tribunalin America" and he handed the
! Judge broad parchment.
/ The trial went on.
| He suffered the witnesses to tell their
| own story, and he allowed the defense to
! lead off. Ashley spoke first, followed by
Pike and Prentiss. The latter brought
the house down in cheers, in which the
jury Joined. -
y It was now the strangers turn. He
rose before the Ear, not behind it, and so
near the wondering jury that he might
touch the foreman with his long bony
finger. He proceeded to tear to pieces the
arguments of Ashley, which melted away
at his touch like frost before q sunbeam.
Every one looked surprised. Anon he
came to the dazzling wit of the poet law
J yer Pike Then the curl of his lip grew
sharper, his smooth face began to kindle
up and his eyes to open, dim and dreary
no longer, but vivid as lightning, red as
7 fire globes, and glazing as twin meteors.
The whole soul was in the eye; the full
heart streamed out of his face. Then
without bestowing an allusion to Prentiss,
he turned short around on the perjured
witnesses of Hopkins, tore their testimony
1 into threads, and hurled in their faces such
terrible invectives that all trembled like
aspens, and two of them fled from the
court house. The excitement of the
crowd was becoming tremendous. Their
/ united life and soul seemed to hang upon
the burning tongue of the stranger, and
he inspired them with the power of his
passions. He seemed to have stolen ma
lures long hidden secret of attraction,
But his greatest triumph was to come
His eyes began to glance at the assassin
Hopkins, as his lean, taper fingers assumed
the, same direction. He hemmed the
wretch within a wall of strong evidence
and impregnable argument, cutting off all
hope of escape. He dug beneath the muir
derer's feet bitches of dilemmas, and held
up the SANDER to the scorn and contempt
of the populace. Having thus grit him
about with circle of fire, he stripped
himself to the work of massacre. -
Obi then it was vision both glorious
and dreadful to behold the orator. His &C.
ton became as impetuous as the motion
Of an oak in hurricane. His voice be-
came a trumpet filled with wild whirl-
pools, deafening the ears with crashes of
power, and yet intermingled all the while
with a sweet undersong of the softest ca.
dence. His forehead glowed like a heated
furnace, his countenance was haggard
like that Of maniac, and ever and anon
he flung his long, bony arm on high as if
grasping after thunderbolts.
He drew a picture of murder in such
appalling colors, that, in comparison, hell
itself might seem beautiful he painted
the slanderer so black that the sun seemed
/ dark at MONDAY, when shining on such a
monster. And then fixing both portraits
on the shrinking Hopkins, fastened them
there forever. The agitation of the audi
4 ence amounted almost to madness.
i 9 All at once the speaker descended from
the perilous height His voice walled out
for the murdered dead and living-the
beautiful Mary, more beautiful every mo-
ment as her tears flowed faster and faster,
till men wept and sobbed like children.
He closed by strange exhortation to
the jury, and through them to the bystand.
ers; he advised the panel, after they should
bring ma verdict for the plaintiff, not to
offer violence to the denfendant, however
richly he might deserve it; in other words
mot to lynch the villain, but to leave his
punishment with God.' This was the most
artful trick of all, and the best calculated
to insure vengence.
4 The jury rendered a verdict of fifty
thousand dollars; and the night afterwarc
Hopkins was taken out of his bed by