The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1881-08-24

nneAo 'no AoAe outslue money was coming
iron ana trying to calculate, from the faces
OF my pals, how much each had got. Well,
we nnally went to the jury room to get YER
dict. We can't form a hasty verdict II .
case like this said the foreman; we must
| pause and reflect then all hands laughed
ana m we sat about fifteen minutes redecting,
presently some gravel struck the back win
cow, and the foreman leaned out and said +.
what do you Want?'
! Throw down rope said the voice, and
tue foreman, who seemed to have q rope all
ready, lowered it down. Up came basket
OF champagne, and as he looked at the tag
ne SAID This is from the defendants 50
we drank their health, and in about an hour
we get another bite on the line, and pulled
| up an old gum boot with fifteen hundred
dollars IN It, This he said was plaintiffs
contribution. We divided the money and
played poker for it, By midnight three Of
US had all the sWag, and then a sack with
1our thousand dollars in it came up, and we
divided and started a fresh game. Wheney
| er the gravel struck the window we pulled.
up something. 1t was an interesting case,
ahd by & O'Clock IN the morning the gravel
ana coin gave out, and we figured on q ver-
dict. The defondunta avidanoa 90 :, -
there on the table, preponderated by thou
sand dollars, apparently, and we were about
to lind, when VS. saw that there was fifteen
hundred more that had to be counted. ALI
hands were SO full that we couldn't tell to
save us which side of the column to put that
money on, and things got so mixed up that
we concluded to do the fair thing all round
and say that we couldn't agree. Finally ii
was suggested to stay out another day, which
we did, and more evidence coming up the
rope settled the business, and we found for
the defendants. Some of the leading points
sprung on us were very complicated things
to wres1le with, and three dollars day didn't
begin to pay US, you see. /"
DRAWING THE JURY.
s'Drawing the jury is the main thing" said
man in striped pants, edging up. 'In the
famous case of -- versus - it cost EN-
twenty thousand to fix the county officers
The county clerk got a fat figure for drawing
the jury Oh, be was cunning as a monkey,
and could get any twelve names out of fifty
you wanted, and he'd be lookin' all over the
court room all the time. He could nail the
right names just as certain as DEATH
The listeners expressed some desire to un-
derstand the modus operandi, which the
communicative gentleman proceeded to ex
plain:
''You see, he took twelve ballots and rolled
EN- up in piece Of paper, with the ends
slightly pasted together He had them up
his sleeve, and when he went into the box
he made big show of stirring up things,
and held the package in his hand all the
while. Then be tore open the package and
proceeded to draw, always picking from the
little hollow paper, and never failing to hit
the right ones. Oh, he was slick, and you
could always count on him. The funniest
part of the suit was that the boys who cot
the companies into wrangle also manipu-
lated the jury, and in order to make things
harmonious they picked the same jury for
both sides. You never saw people so pleased
as all hands were when that jury was accept
ed Each side counted on a dead thing
The judge jurors, lawyers, county officials,
agents, spoilers and sack bearers divided
about equal all around. But these things
are OF the past, and now US mining men
have to rustic for money like other people. !"
THE kuITENNEos UF. THE TIMES.
sits pretty hard to get fair deal now,"
said Sine Barnes. Il knew man once W no
was given $4,000 to fix a jury, and blame
me it the scoundrel didn't quietly walk off
with all the sWag His excuse was that he
hated like the deuce to corrupt anybody. AS
luck would have it the sack bearer on the
other side was seized with the same idea. and
he vamosed There those poor jurors waited
three days for the gravel on the pane, and
finally had to fall back on law and testimony
for verdict. Its hard to trust anybody in
times like these"