brought. The
plaintiff's plea was that he was wholly innocent of the act
committed. Mr. H., on the contrary, contended that he was a
party aiding and assisting. In the course of his remarks he
thus expressed himself: 'But, gentlemen of the jury, this
plaintiff tells you that he had nothing to do with the
turkey. I dare say, gentlemen,--not until it was roasted!'
and he pronounced the word--'roasted'--with such rotundity
of voice, and comicalness of manner and gesture, that it
threw every one into a fit of laughter at the plaintiff,
who stood up in the place usually allotted to the criminals;
and the defendant was let off with little or no
damages."[432]

Finally, we must recall, in illustration of our present subject, an
anecdote left on record in 1813, by the Rev. Conrad Speece, highly
distinguished during his lifetime, in the Presbyterian communion:--

"Many years ago," he then wrote, "I was at the trial, in one
of our district courts, of a man charged with murder. The
case was briefly this: the prisoner had gone, in execution
of his office as a constable, to arrest a slave who had been
guilty of some misconduct, and bring him to justice.
Expecting opposition in the business, the constable took
several men with him, some of them armed. They found the
slave on the plantation of his master, within view of the
house, and proceeded to seize and bind him. His mistress,
seeing the arrest, came down and remonstrated vehemently
against it. Finding her efforts unavailing, she went off to
a barn where her husband was, who was presently perceived
running briskly to the house. It was known he always kept a
loaded rifle over his door. The constable now desired his
company to remain where they were, taking care to keep the
slave in custody, while he himself would go to the house to
prevent mischief. He accordingly ran towards the house. When
he arrived within a short distance of it, the master
appeared coming out of the door with his rifle in his hand.
Some witnesses said that as he came to the door he drew the
cock of the piece, and was seen in the act of raising it to
the position of firing. But upon these points there was
not an entire agreement in the evidence. The constable,
standing near a small building in the yard, at this instant
fired