The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1882-03-21
a CALIFORNIA TRIAL.
Eox tns Old Preacher w on
Judge, Jury and Specta-
tors.

81 the potent influence Of eloquence
ON the uncultivated masses. and how
rhe fervent oratOry of Patrick Henry
and Henry Clay, and Webster, Cor
win, and Crittenden. and Tom Mar
shall, and those Old-time men of the
primitive bar, carried juries by storms
IN those recorded appeals to the heart,
which have never been excelled in
che annals of human pleading.
The episode of similar nature &C.
CURED out in the early days of Cali
serria mining, of which the writer
WIS q spectator. The circumstances
we're as follows
A miner had been caught stealing
gold dust. That kind Of business
couldn't be permitted in the mines
@;orcible examples had to be made of
all such offenders. Murder regulated
stself there was rongh code of
hoaur recognized and based upon
uu blic sentiment. If the man who
killed another had justifiable provo
cation, he went unmDlestel but if
ne had killed this man without suffi-
cient cause, he probably paid the
PENALTY with his own life the first
time a relative or friend of the
murdered man "got the drop on him"
The only ether public offense was
eheft that was SO contemptibly mean
and SO vitality affected the interests
of the miners and their sense of safety,
that thew rarely ever failed to string
she offender. even after rough courts
were established and trial by Jury
granted.
On this special occasion a bag Of
gold dust hal been taken from uu Ter
4 miners bunk by one of his working
companions, and he had been captured
with it on his way to San FRANCHISES
an WIS brought blck for a-quick
aud effective trial.
Have You any counsel p asked
the Judge.
No. amt got any friends, any
a,iv to talk for me 80 YOU might
as we'll cut the chinnin' short and
pull me up"
If YOU will allow me to act as
counsel for the prisoner, I'll say
few words for him, rem arked tall.
ungainly miner, who was stranger
a. that particular "diggin's."
"All right, TIERS the jury. Bring
up your client and let him plead to
ehe charge"
The prisoner stood up and admitted
eh. theft, and at the request of tho
stranger stated tho circumstances
which had tempted him to take the
dust. He had just gotten letter
frou his wife in the states, In which
che wrote that her mother and one
of his children had died, and she
begged him if he Lowell her to c)me
home, even if he had to borrow the
80 prev OF his friends, AMI she would
help him ID work aud pay it
back. He also stated that IS he had
osen unable to borrow the money,
he had taken the dust with the
snteation of paying it buck when he
returned home,
The letter was produced in court
10 substantiate the truth Of his state
ment, and il evidently weakened
some Of the jury, bat there were
stern, uamoved men in the crowd,
all beltei r,and with knives AM
pistols, who knew that any letting
up on theft would rem Ter gold dust
ooo unsafe besides they SPOKE up
right aud left, saying Tia u they all
.ot just such letters from home as
we'll that the same kind OF sorrpw in
their own domestic life came up
every day or week to some of them.
and the very mutual condition of
deprivation and toll should establish
a c,ie of honesty ab,ve everything
else. OF course, said they. the
fellow can have his counsel to chin
for him, but We must graft him to
Linn all the same.
1t happened. however. that this
tall ungainly old miner who had
undertaken the defence was an old
Methodist camp-meeting revival preach
er, and although he began very quiet
ly, and cautiously treading on the
dangerous ground of talking in the
prisoners defence, the first thing that
ju ige, jury and spectators knew, he
had got warmed up to his old work,
AMI. although he had the sing-sons
style of delivery of those old revival
lists, his words rang out with all the
thrilling eloqueace of Clay and the
fervid devotional oratory of a Wesley
or Bascom. Oae by one the human
icicIes began to melt around him
one by one they began to turn back on
fhair lives To THAR homes their faith