The age-herald., 1900-12-10
SKETCHES FROM
 EVERYDAY LIFE


 a popular ex-judge. T was holding court at of the little mining towns. A man had been arrested charged with doing busi- ness without license. He had given A hypnotic exhibition in the town and the question before me was whether he had used any apparatus or did any thing that might be considered manual labor or whether he had given what might be call ed a lecture or a scientific entertainment. In the latter case he would not have to pay license. In order to determine the question, I had to hear evidence as to what he had done. It appeared that he had been interested in hypnotism, and had sent off for book on the subject which he pro- ceeded to read. When he finished reading the book and making one or two experi- ments on a weak-minded boy of his ac- quaintanee, he considered that he knew enough of the subject to give an exhibi- tion He selected the little mining town as the scene of his initial performance, hired hall and advertised himself as Pro- lessor Hitchman, the world famous hyp- notfst, The night of the performance ar rived and the hall was filled with tough looking audience made up chiefly of miners. About a dozen were induced to come on the stage as subjects, and the professor proceeded to make the usual passes and gesticulations until he thought the miners were sufficiently under his influence Then turning to the audience he announced some of the things he proposed to make them do. Then turning to the subjects, who stood in row in stolid indifference-'Now, then, he said, you will go and saddle the ass.' The men moved around the hall as if they were hunting for something and finally approached the professor and laid hold of him. Some of them then went out to near by stable and got saddle which they silently proceeded to strap on the professors back. the professor making in the mean while the most frantic reverse passes he could think of, but without eff feet When the professor was saddled all of the subjects piled on him, attempting to ride. This did for the professor, and he could not continue the entertainment. Some of the audience, while they had en- joyed the performance, felt that they had been 'buncoed' out of their money and proceeded to have the professor arrested for doing business without a license. l.. however, acquitted him as he proved that he had done no manual labor that evening save his attempts to throw the miners who were riding him. ~l
 
 For ways that are dark and tricks that are not always vain," said man about town "the street gamin is peculiar I was walking up Twentieth street the other day and stopped by post to light a cigar I noticed a small gamin who was standing on the curbing absent mindedly licking his hand I concluded that he was merely try ing to get off some of the smoke and dust of the cat, and marvelled somewhat that child of the gutter should possess such in- stincts of cleanliness if this method of removing dirt could be called cleanly. Ths spot was just opposite grocery store, and the proprietor was busy at the front of the store selecting some celery for a lady. Just as he disappeared within the store the boy started up the street, and passing barrel of sugar which stood open at the door he put his hand, in an apparently careless way, down in the sugar and walked off now perceived the object of his cat-liks ablutions. He did not grab a handful of the sugar, and when he took his hand off did not close it. Any one watching him except myself would not have suspected him of being any the richer for that care- less pat"
 "A man with suddenly acquired money" remarked a lawyer during an off hour in office business, lis legitimate prey for all men. Especially is this true with a negro. I had a client once who had the good for tune to be injured by railroad. He was quite badly injured and recovered fairly large verdict. He was country youth who had never had as much as ten dollars in his life. He also had no sense. While waiting for his case to come to trial, in spite of my advice to the contrary, he would go around town and talk about his case to every idle negro he met. He told them he was going to get a large verdict. and I was really surprised to recover any thing after the various statements he made to different people, for the rail- road companies always keep these plain tiffs shadowed by detectives who try to get them to make contradictory state ments This negro would promise large sums to all the other negroes he talked to if they would help him win the case. As a matter of fact there were only two wit nesses in the case and the others were of no earthly use.
 ''The day the case was to be tried com promise was made with the company and the money paid over. I succeeded in get ting the negro safely to my office, closely followed by mob of would-be witnesses who had learned of the settlement and wanted to be paid l locked the door and gave the negro his share of the money. The mob outside seemed to be growing larger every minute. Had I turned my client out among them he would not have had cent left within five minutes. kept him there all the afternoon. and when it grew dark had the office boy help him out the back window onto a roof. They passed over several roofs and finally climb ed down into another street by means of a fire escape. They then made their way to dept and the negro was put on train. I have never seen or heard from him since"