rein on the whole business. No knock-downs and drag-outs. No rows. Apsleigh 's been the quietest, best-behaved city in the State for twenty years, all through John Denman." "The temperance folks admit that!" cried half a dozen. "It used to be a nice, sociable, friendly kind of a place to live in," said still another juryman; "and now lifelong friends won't speak to each other, and it's nothing but hate breaking up everything, from churches to a rubber of whist. It's just as Mr. Dow said: been the best city in the State for twenty years, and now-it 's hell." "I'll be hanged if I 'll vote ag'in' John Denman!" exclaimed one of the roughest of the jurors. "He's a bird, he is, a reg'lar Jim Dandy, and if a feller wants a little suthin' in his insides, it 's nobody's business but hisn!" "But we are sworn to find according to the law and the evidence, and if we do not we are perjured," protested the foreman. "That's so!" assented one or two. "But," urged a little jeweler of bookish tastes, "it used to be the law, the greater the truth the worse the libel, and all the world honors the jury that would n't convict Captain Baillie for publishing the shameful things done in Greenwich Hospital. How was it with the Fugitive-slave Law? Who blames juries now for setting slaves free against law and evidence?" "This is not the Fugitive-slave Law," replied the foreman. "Unless this great evil is rooted out, free government cannot exist another hundred years." "Can't it exist if Mrs. Frye has mince-pies and cider apple-sass?" piped a shrill voice. "She told my wife t' other day she could n't git no cider for mince-pies and apple-sass, 'cause her husband was 'fraid of bein' a witness." "Mr. Foreman," inquired the little jeweler, "is it any worse for Mrs. Frye to have mince-pies and cider apple-sauce than for the prosecuting attorney to smoke an old clay pipe and drink coffee strong as lye?" Strickland's return put an end to the discussion. The evidence was put in, piled up, as Woods said, like the everlasting mountains. Some of the jurors sat sullen and inattentive; three or four stood with their hands in their pockets, looking out of the windows; one skilfully carved his monogram on the back of a chair. When all the evidence was in Strickland instructed the jury in regard to the law, and told them that Denman's good qualities had nothing to do with the case before them. He told them that, whether the law was just or unjust, wise or foolish, was a question for the legislative, not the judicial, department of the State. He reminded them that they had taken an oath to be governed by the law and the evidence, and by that alone, and that they could not shrink from the obligation without being guilty of perjury. Then they voted. They numbered twenty, not counting Adams, excused. Three voted "Bill," four voted "No bill," thirteen declined to vote. "Gentlemen, you must vote," said Strickland; "the law requires it. We'll try again." Five voted "Bill," fifteen voted "No bill." Strickland urged them to ask questions in regard to the law, pressed them to name a flaw in the evidence that could make a doubt possible in any sane mind, insisted that free government must be a government of law, and sharply rebuked them for violation of sworn duty. Then he made them ballot again. The ballot stood sixteen for Denman, four against him. There was no occasion for the New York lawyer who could make a jury think the moon a green cheese; the five hundred and forty-six complaints were waste paper. The attempt to confiscate the liquors proved equally abortive. They had been stored in an isolated stone building formerly used as a jail. The commissioners appointed to examine them and report to the court found nothing but empty casks. The November election immediately followed. Strickland, whose duty as prosecuting attorney relieved him from the odium of voluntary action, pulled through with barely a tenth of his former majorities. Every other candidate who had shown the slightest anti-liquor proclivities was snowed under. For the first time in twenty-five years city and county went Democratic on the local ticket. Apsleigh, full of dissension and hate, losing business every day, cried for peace. Prohibition was pronounced a chimera, and Denman invincible. |