The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1905-09-29

By . Wake County Justice of the
Peace-The Proceeding. I'm the An
cient open Court Style. Rather
Ultra-Judicial. bur Effective.

efent open Court Style. Rather
Uitra-Judicial. but Effective.
Nearly in front of the Marlborough
House on Fayetteville street in this
city, and within fifty yards OF The
court house. was witnessed come days
ago h most remarkable court pro-
ceedinss seen in North Carolina since
the reconstruction times Of Greasy
Sam Watts, who. by the way, was
n OF h e best judges Of common
sense who ever sat upon the superior
court bench in the state, even IL If has
been said that he was short on knowi-I
character, dubbed Greasy Sam, by
Josiah Turner, a no less famous char
acter. ended his days making a living
selling Watts Bed Bug Poison. But
to return to the path of this story:
Beginning at the capitol, in the ex-
ecutiVe Cflce. Enter a weeping woman,
age about ~forty-five, and her daughter,
about twenty and comedy. The woman!
relates a tale cf marital i~nfedelity to
his exceiiency. The gallant governor 5
sympathles being aroused by the visi-
bic signs of feminine distress, and as
the chief magistrate of a great state,
he vows that justice shall be done to
even the most humble; the I'M and
her daughter are directed to seek the
Office IF a certain new justice of the
peace, who had been recently appointed
The directions were followed and the
oy7 nj a in re- ~ H. ILL.,
laid before his worship, charging a
breach OF the peace and dignity Of the
state by the husband in his conauc-l
towards the wife Of his bosom. The
Justice forthwith sought the advice of
a certain lawyer, learned in the law
and skilled in ~unraveling the tanglesl
into which married folks sometimes
fall, when one has too frequently Wis
tied the Raleigh ~dispensary and i'm
bibed o freely of the reeking "rosy''j
with the flies eft in.
The township constable is summoned
and is armed with a proper warraEr
authorizing him to capture and forth
with have the body of the said delin-
ouent husband before his worship, tOI
answer. He kurries 10 a four-roon
cottage in the suburbs of the city and
soon returned With his prisoner seated
upon an old gray mare, his left foot
swathed in many bandages, looking
like a c~anvasscd ham of weslecnI
brand. He plead that he was too lameI
to dismount and climb the stairs Lead
ing to the lawyers Office On the second
floor of one of the big office buildings,
where his worship had appointed thel
trial. A hurried consultation vas heidi
upon the unusual plea of the prisoner,
and the lawyer advised that the court
and the prosecuting witness and her
comely daughter adjourn to the street,
and there dispose Of the weighty nlat-l
ter versus pater familias.
But the woman demurred. Her in7
tuitive sense of the ethical and properl
procedure in al matters familiar beingl
superior to the lawyers learning flor
woman's intuition is more than learn
inf, who argued that anciently the
courts of the Anglo-Saxons were held
under the trees and in the open, ard
hence our trials in open court. But
when a woman wills, and her sense of
what is officially proper in matters
growing out Of or connected With,
family affairs, is at issue with a law
yer'S learning in ancient court proce-|
dure, why, the lawyers learning had
to give in so far as her appearing IN
the court Observation-Disclosures the court
and the lawyer, armed with a copy OF
the St. James version-nO new or re-
vised version is a proper vehicle to
carry an oath since kissing the Book
has been adjudged necessary by the
supreme court-proceeded to the pris-
oner instead of his coming to court.
There it was the attention Of a by
Stander was attracted to the scene by
hearing the staccatO tones Of the law
yer, n here is what he saw AID
heard:
The court was standing barehead at
the curb-stOne, the prisoner seated on
the old gray mare. with Bible in hand.
the constable holding the mares bri
die as if he feared the escape of the
evidently frightened prisoner, and the
lawyer administering the following
extra-judicial oath in most solemn
form:
DO you sOlemnly swear upon the
holy evangelists of Almighty God char
you will instantly go home, get sober,
keep sober, drink no more dlspensary
liquor, flies, strawS, barrel-shipplng to
the contrary Notwithstanding; and that
you will forever hereafter love. honor
and obey your wife, the prosecuting
witness, and keep her, in sickness and
in health, so long as you both shall
live: and from now on, for the full
term Of six months at least, you will
give her no further cause of complaint
against you by having "crim con" OF
ungodly conversation with n Sally
Warren in particular, or other women
in general, without first informing
your wife thereof and obtaining her
consent? And you acknowledge your
self indebted TO the state of North
Carolina in the penal sum of fifty dol
lars to be levied out of your earthly
goods and chattels, conditioned, never,
theless, upon your strictly keeping the
promises you have here given in the
presence Of this august court: and that
Won will Siy months from his date