Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1876-06-29
PETIT, OF INDIANA.
Pencil Sketch Of His Record as Il Jurist
and Man.
From the Cincinnati Gazette

Prom the Cincinnati Gazette
LAFAYETTE, IND, June S, rs.
The most notable specimen in the
Supreme court museum is ''Old Petit,
for by that name he is commonly call
ed. At almost any hour of the day or
night the visitor to the State Law Lii
brary at indianapolis, will be aroused
from his meditations over some book of
reference by the figure of curious old
fellow intruding, out of habit, like
Paul Pry. Over his bald pate is a
white linen skull-cap, cut on the stu
dent pattern; huge turn-up collar,
| almostEliZabethan in its proportions MS
| ing threateningly to the base of his ears;
breeches of black luster, cut Ia trap
door, and enormously large; the bal
ance of his wardrobe consisting of slip
pers, dressing gown, and the stump of
cigar, which latter maintains per-
picking SameneSS in length. In stature
he is short and fat, in locomotiOn lazy;
while his physiognomy presents one of
those repulsive studies in natural his
tory that can't be cured. and must.
therefore be endured. There was a
time, we are told in ancient history,
when John Pettit's face was not spec
tally unpleasant to look upon; but the
hard, Grabbed, and selfish expression
he now wears has been chronic for ma
ny years. Every feature of his face is
coarse, heavy and forbidding, especial
ly the cold. cynical eyes, and the large.
contemptuous, tobacco-stained mouth.
When sitting in the chambers at this
rather warm season of the year, he in
variably has at his side pitcher of ice
water, and while the lawyers are paw
ing over authorities, the old Judge will
amuse himself with business-like regu-
larity, in applying his handkerchief,
loaded with ice, to the open prairie of
forehead, all the time maintaining a
woe-begone and painful cast of counte-
nance. There must be furnace at the
base of his brain, for the fire about his
head is so unquenchable that nature
seems to have kind of vestal virgin
contract to feed the flame. Whenever
he speaks from the bench his tone is
slow and dictatOrial, his words general
ly to the point; but he is extremely ir-
ritable and fretful, the privilege of old
age, and when the cares of office are
over for the day, and he can fight an
noyances on their Ownground, without
having any dignity to preserve, he
pours fourth stream of oaths, and the
air in his region is kept at a uniform
sulphurous temperature.
HIS CHARACTER.
Estimating him both as jurist and
citizen, it would be hard to find a more
uncongenial, repulsive man. His
thoughts are selfish, his whims unbear-
able, his language petulant and bias
phemous, his notion of things mortal
and immortal, bitter and hatefully out
OF plumb with time-honored ideas of
human charity, and never changing
laws of mutual forbearance. He be-
longs to the class of beings who don't
know how to grow old. and hence his
life is both painful and pitiable illus
tration of age unguarded by habits of
gentlenessand sobriety and left to wither
on the stem. He conceived the idea
some years ago that to be a man of
mark it was necessary for him to take |
decided stand on the subject of relig-
ion, and this he did by sneering at the |
gospel of Christ, and berating its foun-
der. He could find all the nourishment |
his soul required in the religious system
of the Orient, or such was his pretense.
The result is natural. To-day, at the
age of nearly seventy, he maintains a
logged consistency in his creed of /
grooming pettishly over his Eastern ak
ioms, and morbidly thumbing a quaint
edition of the Hindoo Scriptures. If
you could see him at these moments, |
trying to extract flew sunbeams of hope
from this moral cucumber, those words 1
of Tom Hood would seem to fit him
perfectly:
Il remember, / remember
The mr. trees dark and high;
1 used to think their slender tops
We're close against the sky;
IL was a childish ignorance
But now tits little joy,
To know I'm further on from heaven,
Than when a boy"
AND INSULTING ATTACKS.
Whenever opportunity afforded, "Old
Petit" would insult the feelings of
people he met by infamous attacks on
Christ, and when there was no Oppor-
tunity, his malice would invent one.
The climax in bis career of shame was
reached recently in Lafayette, when
the blasphemous hereto outraged all
rules of decency, and the very laws he
Is supposed to interpret, by interrupt
ing a quiet religious meeting when
drunk. He swOre at the preacher,
tried to cane him, damned everything,
even reverence, and brought his high
office down to the level of street brawls.
All questions of religion aside, the peo-
pie of this State have forever lost con-
fidence in one who would thus degrade
his manhood. 1t is, indeed, a pitiable
sight.
A BUSY CAREER.
No man living to-day in Indiana, or
sleeping beneath its sod, has had bus
Ter career than John Petit, or filled
more positions of trust. He came to
this State in 1881 from New York,
where he was born in 1907, and for the
past half century almost has been in
some capacity of trust under its govern
nent. Let us call by roll: Member of I
The State Legislature, United States {
District Attorney, six years Congress I
nan, three years Senator, a member '
IF the Constitutional Convention, Presi- {
lential ElectOr in the Pierce-Scott cam
paign, Mayor of Lafayette, Circuit
Judge, Judge of the Supreme Bench of
and for six years past Judge of
he Supreme Court of Indiana. With
ali that record to stand on, he assumes
.he role Of street ruffian at the age of
,hree score and ten. Each hair in his {
Did head, which memory might have
woven into chaplet of political re-
lown, now constitutes a separate item
If reproach in the shameful bill of par
.x..wI rrer L.. = /