The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-03-02

A book agent had unsuccessfuly cam
Nassed each individual member of the
courthouse coterie, in the endeavor to sell
copies of work called Greatest Ora
tors of All Time, and had retired in
much disgust Naturally this incident
reminded these long range takers of
orators and oratcry. The old judge, who
seldom participated in the deliberations
of the gang remaining indoors, on
account of feeble health, but as this was
/balmy, sunny day. he sat in the seats
of the mighty and dshed out wisdom as
follows:
THE olden style of courtroom orator
is rapidly becoming extinct. Twenty
years ago l could have put my hand on
a dozen lawyers who bawled at jury
like driving cattle, and who roared and
beloved until the courtroom echoes re-
sembled a Mexican revolution. For hours
they would keep up this unholy dis
turbance; nothing would stop them short
OF applying a burning lightwood knot
to their coat tails.
IF Old Gabriel had CHANGED to sound
his trumpet while one of these human
volcanoes was eruptng before a petit
jury, no one would have walked from
the dead, as all hands would have been
minutes before Gabe had begun to toot.
These old forensic rips didn't know any
ieNN-thCy spur lieu INV DOOhS, anu SCOtilCu
supreme court decisions, but they relied
on muscle and sweat earthquake roar
ing and bowling until the shingles of
the courthouse curled up, and the jurors
wished they were dead and in the quiet
grave.
Il presume none of you gentlemen had
the misfortune to enjoy the personal ac-
qualntance of Jeemes Franklin Shellnut
of Hardscrabble. Haralson county, Ga?
He was a lawyer man, who in his early
youth acquired a local reputation as pos
sessing unusual vocal chords, from hoi-
ler1ng across the FLYER to a deaf ferry
man. At the immature age of 10 he was
employed by the local swine raisers to
call up the hogs of the settlement, which
occupation he pursued until complaint
was made by inhabitants of the Wedowee,
Randolph county, Ala, neighborhood. 35
miles away, that the state of Georgia
was getting too noisy and dsorderly for
comfort.
AT 20 years old the management of the
Atlanta Cotton exposition hired him, as
the official announcer of the expo.-but
the police stopped him on the second
day, upon the ground that his voice was
cracking the walls of the<Kimball house.
Armed with this vocal talent a Sears
Roepuck catalogue, and a volume of DR..
Gums family physician. he began the
practice of law. Shellnut drifted over
mere into Ala abama to defend a client OF
his for carving a Cleburne county man
with shoe knife. He became greatly
GlsSusted after search among the vol
ulnes of the local law libraries that he
was unable to find any legal work on
''stabbing."
While Jeemes Franklin Shelnut didn'
know thing about preparing the papers
IN case, called by lawyefs--'pleadings'
fact is, he couldn't tell a demurrer from
a roam colt; yet, when it came to ar
guing case before jury that Georgia
megaphone was squirting fountain OF
pniiosy, and ball nozzle syringe Of mu-
tilated grammar. A drunken sausage
machine grinding up crazy dictionary
was classic in a page, compared to
his spellbinding.
1t made no difference to him how
guilty the prisoner was, nor how posi-
tive was the evidence, he would always
find some fool point in the case and argue
1t as IL 1t was convincing of the inno-
cence of his man.
For hours he would stand fiat footed
and squirt torrents of dislocated syntax
and howl verbal billingsgate to a home
sick Jury until that body would wish