'stidder
tryin' ter break out'n jail."

At ten o'clock the prisoner was brought into court. He walked with
shambling gait, bent at the shoulders, hopelessly, with downcast eyes,
and took his seat with several other prisoners who had been brought in
for sentence. His wife, accompanied by the children, waited behind him,
and a number of his friends were gathered in the court room.

The first prisoner sentenced was a young white man, convicted several
days before of manslaughter. The deed was done in the heat of passion,
under circumstances of great provocation, during a quarrel about a
woman. The prisoner was admonished of the sanctity of human life, and
sentenced to one year in the penitentiary.

The next case was that of a young clerk, eighteen or nineteen years of
age, who had committed a forgery in order to procure the means to buy
lottery tickets. He was well connected, and the case would not have been
prosecuted if the judge had not refused to allow it to be nolled, and,
once brought to trial, a conviction could not have been avoided.

"You are a young man," said the judge gravely, yet not unkindly, "and
your life is yet before you. I regret that you should have been led into
evil courses by the lust for speculation, so dangerous in its
tendencies, so fruitful of crime and misery. I am led to believe that
you are sincerely penitent, and that, after such punishment as the law
cannot remit without bringing itself into contempt, you will see the
error of your ways and follow the strict path of rectitude. Your fault
has entailed distress not only upon yourself, but upon your relatives,
people of good name and good family, who suffer as keenly from your
disgrace as you yourself. Partly out of consideration for their
feelings, and partly because I feel that, under the circumstances, the
law will be satisfied by the penalty I shall inflict, I sentence you to
imprisonment in the county jail for six months, and a fine of one
hundred dollars and the costs of this action."

"The jedge talks well, don't he?" whispered one spectator to another.

"Yes, and kinder likes ter hear hisse'f talk," answered the other.

"Ben Davis, stand up," ordered the judge.

He might have said "Ben Davis, wake up," for the jailer had to touch the
prisoner on the shoulder to rouse him from his stupor. He stood up, and
something of the hunted look came again into his eyes, which shifted
under the stern glance of the judge.

"Ben Davis, you