CHAPTER XII.

The Lawyer-Courts of Common Pleas-Title DeedsRemarks.

Two years ago I was obliged to attend the court at Indiana county, Pennsylvania. An important trial for a murder had gathered the whole county within the precincts of Indiana. Riflemen in their hunting coats, farmers on horseback, holding large sticks in their hands, and accompanied by their wives and daughters, who were also mounted on horseback, with baskets of eggs and apples hanging on each side, and hams suspended to the horses' necks. Here and there a country lawyer dismounting from his horse, taking his saddle-bag under his arms, and stalking into the tavern with all due self-importance in order to change his dress-these, and the venders of the dainties of these parts, gingerbread, apple-pies, cider, and ale, were the exhibitions that contributed to enliven Indiana for five days. I followed the throng rushing out of the town-inns, preceded by the honourable the President of the Quarter Sessions, with a gentleman next to him, whose very plain and simple attire bespoke a farmer, but who was in reality the assistant-judge. The second assistant-judge walked behind them, supported by two gentlemen of the bar, as he was unable to bear up under the effect of the copious libations of spirits in which he had just indulged. It was on a Tuesday, and the court, which was opened on the preceding afternoon, was now about to commence business. When they arrived at the court-house, the judges took their seats in the tribune, below them was the prothonotary as clerk of the court, on his right on a bench sat the county officers, the coroner, the sheriff, the commissioners, and the jury. The lawyers arriving by degrees, to the number of twenty-five, from the several inns where they had been engaged in the important affair of making themselves popular, were placed in chairs round the rostrum.

The customary preliminaries of administering the oaths to the jury being gone through, the trial began. In the year 1823, a couple of oxen belonging to a man named Shara, were publicly sold in Indiana county for a debt due to a neighbouring farmer. Shara, enraged at the loss of his cattle, declared he would revenge himself,

and ran with full speed to the house of his prosecutor. On arriving there, he knocked the old man down, dragged him out, and despatched him with a club. The son of the victim, who, upon the entrance of Shara, had fled for assistance, met him on his return home. "Well, well," says Shara, " you may go home, your father has done for this life, he will not sell any more oxen." The murder was of so shocking a nature, that no one doubted of his being executed. A thousand dollars, however, which were collected by the Irish Catholic countrymen of the prisoner, engaged the powerful lungs of Mr. F in his service, and accordingly the prisoner was only found guilty of manslaughter, and thus escaped with three years imprisonment, perhaps with only one year, as it is an object of economy to save board and lodging in the Penitentiaries.

The next court, twenty-five miles distance, was held in Armstrong county in the succeeding week. One of the trials was as follows:-Two men came down the Alleghany River in a raft. Part of the raft having got loose, was carried for several miles down the river. A young farmer coming out of his house, and seeing it floating, got into his skiff, and when in the act of securing the timber, was met by the two fellows. One of them, without saying a word, levelled a blow at his head, and the unfortunate man dropped from his skiff into the water. His wife seeing the atrocious act, hastened to the county-town eighteen miles distant. The two men were arrested; they were tried, acquitted, and liberated. The previous permission of giving bail enabled them to dispose of their raft, and to raise one hundred dollars; for this sum Lawyer Bundertook their defence, which ended in the result we have stated.

The next court held on the following week at Buttler county, twenty-five miles distant from the county-town of Armstrong, exhibited a scene of another description. A young man owed to a Mr. M-ten dollars; having absconded without payment, the constable was desired to arrest him. This officer being prevented from doing so in person, requested a young man to act for him. The latter accordingly went in pursuit of the debtor, met him at a place two miles distant, and desired he would go along with him, but as he was not provided with a warrant, the debtor was in the act of going away: the young man, on seeing this, levelled

his gun, and shot him through the body. The murderer was committed to gaol, and at the present court was discharged by the aid of five hundred dollars paid to three lawyers for undertaking his defence. In this manner were three murderers acquitted in the space of three weeks. I am far from maintaining that the people of the United States are a lawless or a blood-thirsty race of savages. They yield in point of morality to no other people in the world; but should they in future have less moral feeling, it will be justly attributable to the lawyers. Provided you can hire them, there is scarcely any crime of which they would not undertake to save you from the penalty. Exempla sunt odiosa.

He who would have a true idea of the nature and extent of civil lawsuits, has only to refer to land titles for information. We shall confine ourselves to a few specimens. Pennsylvania was the property of the heirs of William Penn; the government, after having rescinded the grant by which it was held, indemnified them by tracts of land and a sum of money. To have the country surveyed, and to divide it into sections, as is the present practice in the New States, was not then thought of, and indeed could not have been