The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1870-07-14
The Judges ssSpirited Woman.~

We take the following from the "Memoran-
da" in the June GALAXY:
A correspondent quotes an incident in the
Pierre Bonaparte trials as "an unusual instance
of spirit in a woman"-a young and gentle Wo-
man, unaccustomed to tumultuous assembages
of strange men, and, therefore, likely to be the
very reverse of spirited in a place like that
between herself and Victor Noir and his be-
trothed, when Victor was putting on and but
toning his neat new Jouvins Then, says the
correspondent:
She described how in two hours they brought
him back dead. In the evening she asked
those about her how the trouble came about
and they told her that the Prince said Victor
had given him blowI ~ went to his body"
she said; II looked at his gloves, and when |
saw them unbroken, unsustained and clean, and
tightly fitting, buttoned as had seen them in
the morning, knew the Prince had lied!' AS
she said this, she pointed her finger at the
Prince, and looked him in the face, but he made
no sign.
In a moment this little feminine outburst re-
minded me of an instance which an old Nevada
Judge of the early times gave me as being
what he sparklingly called "the most right up
had ever fallen under his notice.
"I was sitting here" said the Judge, Sin this
old pulpit, holding court, and we were trying
big, wicked looking Spanish desperado for
killing the husband of bright pretty Mexican
woman. 1t was o lazy summer day, and an
awfully long one, and the witnesses were tedi-
Gus. None of US took any interest in the trial
except that nervous uneasy devil of Mexican
woman-because you know how they love and
how they hate, and this one had loved her hus-
band with all her might, and now she had boil
ed it all down into hate, and stood there spit
ting it at that Spaniard with her eyes; and
tell you she would stir me up, too, with little
of her summer lightning occasionally. Well,
had my coat off and heels up, lollin1g and sweat
ing, and smoking one of those cabbage cigars
the San Francisco people used to think were
good enough for us in those times and the
lawyers they all had their coats off and were
smoking and whiting, and the witnesses the
same, and so was the prisoner. Well, the fact
is, there warn't any interest in murder trial
then because the prisoner was always brought
in not guilty, the jury expecting them to DO as
much for them some time; and, although the
evidence was straight and square against this
Spaniard we knew we could not convict him
without seeming to be rather high-handed and
sort of rejecting on every gentleman in the COM
munity for there warn't any carriages and liv-
cries then, and so the only style there was, to
keep your private graveyard But that woman
seemed to have her heart set on hanging that
Spaniard; and you'd ought to have seen how
she would glare on him minute, and then look
up at me in her pleading way, and then turn,
and for the next five minutes search the jury's
faces-and by and by drop her face in her
hands for just little while, as if she was most
ready to give up; but out she'd come again di-
rectly and be as live and anxious as ever. But
when the jury announced the verdict, not gull
ty, and told the prisoner he was acquitted and
free to co. that woman rose up till she appear
ed to be as tall and grand as seventy-four gun
ship, and says She:
"Judge, do understand you to say that this
man is not guilty, that murdered my husband
without any cause, before my eyes. and my lit
tie chidren's, and that all has been done to him
that verjustice and the law can do?"
"The same"
And then what do you reckon she did Why
she turned on that smirking Spanish fool like
wildcat, and out with navy and shot him
dead in open court"
"That was spirited, 1 am willing to admit"
"Wasn't it though" said the Judge, admir-
inglv. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything.
adjourned court right on the spot, and we put
on our coats, and went out and took up col
lection for her and her cubs, and sent them
over the mountains to their friends. All, she
was a spirited wench p'