New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-07-15
4 JUDICIAL COMEDY.

II may. be pleasant to be q Judge, and to be
addressed as "Your Honor provided always
the gentlemen of the bar will refrain from
sticking long and sharp pins through the
thickest folds Of the sacred ermine. Every
body will remember Mr.. Curran's retOrt when
an Irish Rhadamanthus said, If that is law,
"Mr. Curran will burn my books Better
"read them, my lord ~ was the quiet answer.
The man on the bench has q certain amount
of power; he may commit for contempt, or he
may fine; and he himself may determine what
Is contemptuous yet the melancholy fact re-
mains, that nobody is afraid of him except
verdant jurors and thick-headed witnesses.
His only resource is to keep his temper and
to make the best Of the situation, for there
may be many of the brothers below who
know moro law than he does, and who do not
in the least dread any penalty which it is in
his power to inflict No dilemma is ever
escaped by getting into passion, and least of
all the dilemma of man who should be right,
and who is clearly demonstrated to be in the
wrong; for fury then only makes the misfor-
tune more conspicuous
In certain parts of the United States, and
especially at the West and the South West, the
Judges have always had hard time of it.
But it is in the Stokes Superior Court, in
North Carolina, that person has, with mex
pressible hardihood, threatened actually to
pull the Judges nose! 'Tis short story. and
not without interest. At the Fall Term Of the
Court, facetiously called Superior, held for
Stokes, in 1872, one McGill, being insulted by
a negro, followed him into the Courthouse,
and chastised him in the presence of the Court
This was what Mr.. Justice Cloud, who was
presiding, could by no means put up with I;
and accordingly he fined the irascible and
irreverent McGill 800 for contempt More
over. he was indicted for assault, and was
fined $50 more, which appears to have broken
the back of his patience, and with this melted
whatever small respect he may have felt for
law "a administered in North Carolina. So he
walked courageously into Court, and instead
of humbly and blandly saying, May it please
syour HONOR he vigorously remarked TO Mr..
Justice Cloud, "f you were not an old man,
al would pull your nose, you old scoundrel,n
anobseryation in which personal indignation and
respect for age were strangely blended. His
Honor could not believe his own ears. He
asked Mr.. McGill to repeat his words, and
Mr.. McGill did repeat them without the least
modifying qualification. Then did the in
suited Judge loudly call for his Sheriff. 1t
was time, indeed, when this aggravating per-
son had spoken thus recklessly of pulling the
Courts nose. The Sheriff came and was
ordered to lock up McGill for sixty
days, in order that he might cool off
at his leisure. The immediate effect
was TO raise his temperature some twenty
or thirty degrees, and to cause him to say to
the venerable magistrate; I'll get even with
"you yet. you old scoundrel." Upon this the
Judge, with singular presence Of mind, changed
the sentence to thirty days in Jail and fine
of $3.50, with bonds to keep the peace toward
all persons, and specially towards Judge
Cloud, in the sum of $1,000, with surety.
Then followed the humiliating catastrophe.
The Sheriff started with his prisoner for tho
gloomy dungeon. But when they ar
rived at hotel by tho way, where