Omaha daily bee., 1898-06-05
HE HIRED A DEFENDANT.
How n Fee Grabbing Justice Secured
Himself In the Old nnNs.

Things have come to a pretty pass
The man who thought and said so sat In
one Of the Offices OF a Kansas City jus
tice Of the peace one afternoon last week,
relates the Kansas City Star. He is so
tall a man that no two chairs in the office
would comfortably hold him, so he stretched
himself out on a long table across which
the lawyers are accustomed to wrangle
every day. His head rested on his hand
and as his six feet and six inches of knotted,
brawny humanity was %sprawled out at full
length, and his snappy little eyes shifted
from one to another of the little group
about him he looked the ideal Texas sheriff.
He was a constable in Kansas City at one
time-that was in the days of long ago
and it was his surprise at the changes since
he made n daily business of arresting Of
tenders against the law that brought forth
the remarks.
80 you are not on fees any more? Well
Well! 1t don't pay to be a justice these
days, I'll bet
The big man stretched himself in a yawn
until he nearly tumbled off the table. When
he had recovered himself his eyes almost
closed in a pleasant recollection.
You don't start out in the morning and
round 'em in like we used to, l guess.
Many's the day I've started out with moth
ing whatever on the string and come back
to the office with not fewer than fifteen
prisoners. There was plenty of criminals
then and we got pretty well acquainted
with them before we let them go. And the
fees
There was no need to finish the sentence
for the broad smile that showed his double
row of yellow teeth was contagious, and
resulted in a returning smile of intelligence
in his auditors.
Speaking of fees reminds me of one case
where | came near losing a nice bunch of
fees. l would have lost them, too, If it
hadn't been for the presence of mind of the
justice.
zone day l arrested a Niger for some
thing or other. / don't remember what II
was now. Business had been kind O. slow
so we decided to make quite a case out
of 1t. | went out and subpoenaed a dozen
witnesses to run up the fees, and when the
case came up for trial we continued it
also on account of the fees"
The former constable was enjoying his
story and he chuckled as he told it.
well, l guess we continued that case o
half dozen times at 81 a time, until the fees
had piled up pretty fair. My share was
something about IS. At last we decided to
let the case go to trial, principally because
we heard the niger was getting sick in the
Jail.
II never will forget the time I went tc The
Jail to get that niger. l seemed to feel
that something was the matter before | got
there, yet | was shocked pretty near off my
feet to learn that the Niger had up and died
the night before. OF course that ended the
business and our fees were all gone to the
dogs. l had figured to buy a new suit o.
clothes with that IS, and it hurt to let it &C
after l had set my heart on it.
II went back and told the judge that il
was all up. All the witnesses were grin
ming about the court room when it Leaked
out that the niger was dead. AT last The
justice called me over to him and says, says
he: Jim, go out and see if you can fine
Brownie'-that was a saddle-colored niggel
that was in pretty close touch with us. WheI
l brought him in, agrinning like the APT
that he was, the justice tells me to bring
him before the desk.
Brownie says the justice, have 70,
got time to go to Jail for a day?'
"'Ah guess so, boss, eff dey's anything il
it. says the niger.
""Well, I'll give you so cents
Dat all right, jedge,' grins the Niger
$50 the judge sentenced the niger to jai
for a day to take the place Of the mar tina
died, and saved us from being knocked on