Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-03-02
CHAPTER XVIII.

A ing sun. The few people who moved about the streets went languid- ly. keeping close to the wall on the shady side; the women in thin white fabrics; the men, often coatless, carry ing palm leaf fans and replacing col lars with handkerchiefs. Tn the court house yard the maple leaves, gray with blown dust and grown to great breadth, dropped heavily, depressing the long, motionless branches with their weight, so low that the four or five shabby idlers upon the benches beneath now and then fiicked them sleepily with whittled sprlgs.
 The doors and windows of the stores stood open, displaying limp wares of trade, but few tokens of life, the clerks hanging over dim counters as far as possible from the glare in front, gos- siping fragmentarily, usually about the Cory murder and anon upon subject suggested by the sight of an occasional pedestrian passing perspiring by with scrooged eyelids and purpling skin. From street and sidewalk transparent hot waves swan up and danced them selves into nothing, while from the riy, CT bank half mile away came q sound hotter than even the locust's midsummer rasp, the drone of plan ing mill.
 Greater heat than that of these blaz- ing days could not have kept one of the sages from attending the conclave now. for the battle was on in Canaan, and here upon the National House cor ner, under the shadow of the west wall, it waxed even keener. Perhaps we may find full justification for call ing what was happening battle in so far as we restrict the figure to apply to this one spot Elsewhere in the Canaan of the Tocsin the conflict was too one sided. The Tocsin had indeed tried the case of Happy Fear in ad- vance, had convicted and condemned and every day grew more bitter. Nor was the urgent vigor of its attack with out effect.
 Sleepy as Main street seemed in the heat, the town was incensed and rous- ed to a tensity of feeling it had not known since the civil war, when. on occasion. it had set out to hang half dozen Knights of the Golden Circle Joe had been hissed on the street many times since the inimical clerk had whistled at him. Probably dem- onstrations of that sort would have continued had he remained in Canaan, but for almost a month he had been absent and his office closed, its thresh- old gray with dust. There were peo- pie who believed that he had run away again. this time never to return, among those who held to this opinion being Mrs. Louden and her sister, Joe's step-aunt. Upon only one point was everybody agreed-that twelve men could not be found in the county who could be so far persuaded and befud- dled by Louden that they would dare allow Happy Fear to escape. The women of Canaan, incensed by the ter rible circumstances of the case, as the Tocsin colored it-a man shot down in the act of begging his enemy's for giveness-clamored as loudly as the men. There was only the difference that the latter vociferated for the hanging of Happy; their good ladies used the word punishment"
 And yet, while the place rang with condemnation of the little man in the jail and his attorney. there were voices here and there uplifted on the other side. People existed, it astonishingy appeared, who liked Happy Fear. These were for the greater part ob- scure and even darkling in their lives, yet quite demonstrably human beings, able to smile. suffer, leap. run and to entertain fancies; even to have, ac- cording to their degree, a certain rudi- mentary sense of right and wrong, in spite of which they strongly favored the prisoners acquittal. Precisely on that account, it was argued, an ac- quittal would outrage Canaan and lay it open to untold danger. Such people needed a lesson.
 The Tocsin interviewed the towns great ones. printing their opinions of the heinousness of the crime and the character of the defendants lawyer.
 ''The Hon. r. J. Parrott, who So ably represented this county in the legisla- ture some fourteen years ago. could scarcely restrain himself when ap- preached by a reporter as to his senti- ments anent the repulsive deed. I should like to know how long Canaan is going to put up with this sort of business were his words. I am law abiding citizen. and I have served faithfully and with my full endeavor and ability to enact the laws and statutes of my state. but there is. q point in my patience. would state. which lawbreakers and their lawyers may not safely pass. Of what use are our most solemn enactments. I may even ask of what use Is the legislature itself. chosen by the will of the people, if they are to ruthlessly be set aside by criminals and their shifty protectors! The blame should be put upon the law yers who by tricks enable such rascsls to escape the rigors of the carefully en- acted laws, the fruits of the solon's labor. more than upon the criminals themselves. In this case if there is any miscarriage of justice will say here and now that in my opinion the people of this county will be sorely tempted. and while do not believe in