The Monticellonian., 1901-08-09
HOW IT LOOKS ABROAD.

'N J1AI CA NA'S gNoNAN@ CO1A which passed upon the constitu- Itionality of a law couple of weeks ago has not escaped the attention of the State press. Like the jury in similar court in Little Rock it made it's mark, and the mark is up as a target for shots from all di- reetions.
 One of the latest shots is from the caustic pen of the editor of the Helena World, and is as follows
 And now a Fort Smith magis- trate's court jury comes to the front with verdict acquitting gambler of charge of turing the genuine sucker into his den and separating him from his swag, up- on the ground that the punishment named in the anti-gambling act is excessive. This reminds us of a story that has been going the rounds in Helena for 10, these many years. It runs like this:
 "In the days before the war a justice of the peace, of the name of
 John K. Hart, good old man, too, whose sole aim 1t was to serve the community well, lived and conducted the business of his of flee in Helena. In the same com munity lived one Ephriam Cooper, possessed of somewhat waspish disposition. Mir. Cooper enter tained many and decided opinions and was always ready to maintain them Tn auy sort of company. He had frequent scraps in those good
 old days, and so well established was his reputation in this respect : that it was currently known that
 if any gentleman was in danger of
 spelling for a fight he could al- , ways get one by tackling Ephraim ; Cooper. On one occasion MT. : Cooper actually shot a man in The
 heat of a controversy, inflicting a : slight wound, and a warrant for  : his arrest and trial before Esquire : Hart was sworn out. That digni- tary had long hated the obstreper- ous conduct of hls neighbor, and had regarded him as menace to s the peace and quiet of the commit nity. Upon this occasion he felt called upon to suppress the bellig- . erent Cooper spirit. Therefore, . when the testimony was all in, and it was shown beyond any sort of doubt that Cooper had precipitat-
 ed the trouble, Esquire Hart read
 the riot act to him in the following manner :-"Mr. Cooper, you are a } bad man in the community, he
 said; ou' re always ready to ' break the peace, to defy the law , and to inflict pain upon citizens ( who differ with you. l am com t pelled to bridle your ugly conduct,
 and therefore sentence you to be
 hung tomorrow morning at To
 o'clock until you are dead. dead,
 dead. " Cooper was equal to the
 emergency. He arose to his feet
 and pointing his skinny fore-fnger { at Squire Hart, said :-"Y ou
 derned old fool, you can't hang
 nobody, and as far as am con- cerned you can go to hell, hell,
 hell, and walked out of the court
 room.
 "These magistrates courts will ascertain after awhile that they cannot annul the constitution and the laws made in pursuance there of. but that they can make them- selves supremely ridiculous. The anti-gambling act is valid until the supreme court says otherwise, and all the efforts of magistrate court
 lawyers, and picked juries, and
 suborned testimony, cannot set 1t aside. More than that. there has
 never been an act passed by the Legislature for the restraint of crime behind this very act. It is
 popular everywhere. and it has the