[From the Missouri Democrat]

A Lawyer’s Adventure

We presume our Illinois readers will readily expand the town C— mentioned into the following sketch into Carlyle:

About three or four years ago, more or less, I was practicing law in Illinois in a pretty large circuit. I was called on one day in my office, in the town of C—, by a very pretty woman, who, not without tears, told me her husband had been arrested for [horse-stealing]. She wished to retain me for the defense. I asked her why she did not go to Judge B., an ex-senator of the United States, whose office was in the same town. I told that I was a young man at the bar, &c. She mournfully said that he had asked a retaining fee above her means, and besides did not want to touch the case, for her husband was suspected of belonging to a gang of horse-thieves and counterfeiters, whose head-quarters were on Moore’s prairie.

I asked her to tell me the whole truth of the matter, and if it was true that her husband did belong to such a band?

“Ah, sir,” said she, “a better man at heart than my George never lived; but likes cards and drink, and I am afraid that they made do what he never would have if he had not drunk. I fear that it can be proved that he had the horse; he didn’t steal it; another did and passed it to him.”

I didn’t like the case. I knew that there was a great dislike to the gang located where she named, and feared to risk the case before a jury. She seemed to observe my intention to refuse the case and burst into tears.

I never could see a woman weep without feeling like a weak fool myself. If it hadn’t been for eyes brightened by “pearly tears,” (blast the poets that made them to come in fashion by praising ‘em,) I’d never have been caught in the lasso of matrimony. And my would-be-client was pretty. The handkerchief that hid her streaming eyes didn’t hide… Read More