The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1909-01-08

IVAS SO1l6 Atllet L1AlS ago, dlu 5uAA-
ty Of trying to earn and to get an
honest living. | was lying asleep near
their holes and the rabbits ran into
my pockets In very sooth a poor
effort, having as its result two months
hard. On the other hand, to asoind
serving on a coroner's jury, an Is
lingtonian pleaded that he was deaf
as a beetle" How plausible was he!
Naturally he was excused.
To frame excuses that will melt the
maglsterial heart requires the skill OF
an artist and is, indeed, fine art-un-
less it is science and one in which
| genius alone can hope to succeed.
Conventional excuses are of little avail,
and yet a cursory study of the ex-
amples here given will show that the
successful excuse should be at least
plausible, for totally irrelevant pleas
are rarely accepted.
! A foreign lady,. poor but dishonest,
for instance, who entered temporarily
vacant house, annexed a table cloth,
CLOCK, lamp and the provender provid
ed for the meals of the real occupants,
en- being arrested and brought before
the Judge addressed him as follows,
but without avail IN. de Juge din
struction: Your face is beautiful,
bland and benign. 1t reminds me of
my deceased husband, man always
gay and smiling, who would never
have refused a favor to a distinguished
woman. | am the authoress of novel,
My Angel Release me and promise
to immortalize you in my next work.
demand my liberty" The Judge,
however, was ungallant enough to
doubt her sanity, and the case-unlike
that which was personally defended by
young lady, who stated that she
had bargained for a piece of tapestry
with figures worked as handsome in
appearance as my lord the President
there, but the plaintiffs palm me off
with figures as ugly as that of Mon
sieur the plaintiffs advocate
fost.
A man who some time ago was
charged at Bow street with being
drunk and disorderly, on being asked
what he had to say, was discharged
when he put forward the following
trite excuse: 'It's in a nutshell, your
Worship-too mucn liquor, no solids,
collapse, and consequences. This was
very much to the point, especially when
compared to the reply of woman aged
81, who was charged at Lambeth with
| Coz AGe -r,Io%
'Ah, your Worship, she explained,
I'm the mother Of twelve children,
that's what I am. And the last time
1t was twins-here they are noW-and
that was only seven weeks ago." Pre-
sumably his worship considered the
infection of twins as sufficient extern
uation for the offence for he told her
to go away and not to do it again.
The plea of a boy burglar, when re-
Gently brought up at Harlesden for
having entered house and stolen a
water can, was somewhat unique. Hav-
ing confessed to breaking into the
house by forcing the back window
catch, he stated that all he did to the
house was to wind the clocks. AL
though this statement perhaps mill
gated his offence to certain extent, it.
was not much more ingenious than the
plea of man arrested some months
ago for begging, who at the time of his
arrest was wearing two shirts, two
pairs of trousers, four waistcoats, and
two coats, and who murmured, when
asked what he had to say in his de-
fence, that "he was born tired'-a re-
ply worthy of the Weary Walker"
class of tramp read about in the comic
weeklies.
Some little time ago man found in
possession of two rabbits offered as an
explanation the statement that he saw
five rabbits in a ditch, that he fell on
them and killed two by breaking their
necks. The magistrates decided that
the story, though picturesque, was I'M
convincing. Far more to the purpose
however, was the defence of two work
ingmen charged at Accrington under
an old statute for killing a hare on
Sunday. 1t was admitted that one man
drove the animal through the fence,
that the other captured it and that
half crown Nss paid to the farmer to
take it away. But, it was argued,
there was no evidence to show that
pussy" ever was killed, and for all
the court knew it was still alive and
kicking-a view of the case that ap-
pealed to the Bench who straightway
accepted it. When some little time ago
milkman was called upon explain at
Lambeth why his. wares contained 6
percent Of water he remarked: 1T
was raining heavens hard and the
sample was taken in the middle of the