ustration: The Bunkley Trial 245]

This verdict and sentence settled the case in law, but it remained as
unsettled as ever in the public mind. The writer of this has heard it
discussed on more than one occasion among old ladies and gentlemen who
knew Bunkley, and who saw the claimant; and, without exception, they
declared that the verdict of the jury was cruelly unjust.

And yet, if any wrong was done, Bunkley himself was to blame for it.
Being a young man of fortune and of the fairest prospects, he owed it to
himself, his family, his friends, and to society at large, to become
a good citizen, so that his ample means might be properly employed.
Instead of that, he became a rowdy and a rioter, spending his days and
his nights in evil company and in dissipation. If the claimant in this
mysterious case was really Jesse Bunkley, it may be said of him that his
sins had found him out.

GEORGIA WIT AND HUMOR.

The wit and humor of Georgia stand by themselves. They have no
counterpart in any other section of the country. Many attempts have been
made to imitate them, but there is always something lacking. The flavor,
the "bouquet," the aroma, is gone. The sun, the soil, the air, and
even the spring water, seem to have something to do with it. Just what,
nobody knows. Wit and humor are elusive,--they are unsubstantial. On the
other hand, the Georgia watermelon is something solid. It may be handled
and felt. It may be "thumped" and "plugged" and tested. Those who know
what a watermelon is and should be, know that there is none to compare
with the melons that are grown in Georgia, no matter what the variety.
The same may be said of the wit and humor that belong to Georgia. An old
man--Uncle Tom Norris he was called, on account of his gray hairs--was
once heard to say (speaking professionally), "Let me clap a drop of
the low-wines to my tongue, and I'll tell you what branch the fire was
kindled on." He was a distiller, and knew his business. One need not
be an expert to say the same of Georgia humor. It is almost possible to
tell the very militia district in which it originated. It carries not
only the flavor, but the color.

For a hundred years Georgia has remained the most democratic part of the
country. The sons of the richest men were put in the fields to work
side by side with the negroes, and were thus taught to understand the
importance of individual effort that leads to personal independence.
It thus happened that