University of Virginia Library

5. ASSAULT AND BATTERY.

A trial came off not precisely in our bailiwick, but in the
neighborhood, of great comic interest. It was really a case
of a good deal of aggravation, and the defendants, fearing
the result, employed four of the ablest lawyers practising at
the M. bar, to defend them. The offence charged was only
assault and battery; but the evidence showed a conspiracy
to inflict great violence on the person of the prosecutor, who
had done nothing to provoke it, and that the attempt to effect
it was followed by severe injury to him. The prosecutor
was an original. He had been an old-field schoolmaster, and
was as conceited and pedantic a fellow as could be found in a
summer's day, even in that profession. It was thought the
policy of the defence to make as light of the case as possible,
and to cast as much ridicule on the affair as they could. J.
E. and W. M. led the defence, and, although the talents of
the former were rather adapted to grave discussion than pleasantry,
he agreed to doff his heavy armor for the lighter weapons
of wit and ridicule. M. was in his element. He was
at all times and on all occasions at home when fun was to be

raised: the difficulty with him was rather to restrain than to
create mirth and laughter. The case was called and put to
the jury. The witness, one Burwell Shines, was called for
the prosecution. A broad grin was upon the faces of the
counsel for the defence as he came forward. It was increased
when the clerk said, “Burrell Shines come to the book;”
and the witness, with deliberate emphasis, remarked—“My
christian name is not Burrell, but Burwell—though I am
vulgarly denominated by the former epithet.” “Well,” said
said the clerk, “Bur-well Shines come to the book and be
sworn.” He was sworn and directed to take the stand. He
was a picture!

He was dressed with care. His toilet was elaborate and
befitting the magnitude and dignity of the occasion, the part
he was to fill and the high presence into which he had come.
He was evidently favorably impressed with his own personal
pulchritude; yet, with an air of modest deprecation, as if he
said by his manner, “after all, what is beauty that man
should be proud of it, and what are fine clothes, that the
wearers should put themselves above the unfortunate mortals
who have them not?”

He advanced with deliberate gravity to the stand. There
he stood, his large bell-crowned hat with nankeen-colored
nap an inch long in his hand; which hat he carefully handed
over the bar to the clerk, to hold until he should get
through his testimony. He wore a blue single-breasted coat
with new brass buttons; a vest of bluish calico; nankeen
pants that struggled to make both ends meet, but failed, by

a few inches, in the legs, yet made up for it by fitting a little
better than the skin every where else; his head stood upon
a shirt collar that held it up by the ears, and a cravat something
smaller than a table-cloth, bandaged his throat: his
face was narrow, long and grave, with an indescribable air of
ponderous wisdom, which, as Fox said of Thurlow, “proved
him necessarily a hypocrite; as it was impossible for any
man to be as wise as he looked.” Gravity and decorum marked
every lineament of his countenance, and every line of his
body. All the wit of Hudibras could not have moved a muscle
of his face. His conscience would have smitten him for
a laugh almost as soon as for an oath. His hair was roached
up, and stood as erect and upright as his body; and his
voice was slow, deep, in “linked sweetness long drawn out,”
and modulated according to the camp-meeting standard of
elocution. Three such men at a country frolic, would have
turned an old Virginia Reel into a Dead March. He was
one of Carlyle's earnest men. Cromwell would have made
him Ensign of the Ironsides, and ex-officio chaplain at first
sight. He took out his pocket hankerchief, slowly unfolded
it from the shape in which it came from the washerwoman's,
and awaited the interrogation. As he waited, he spat on the
floor and nicely wiped it out with his foot. The solicitor told
him to tell about the difficulty in hand. He gazed around
on the court—then on the bar—then on the jury—then on
the crowd—addressing each respectively as he turned:
“May it please your honor—Gentlemen of the bar—Gentlemen
of the jury—Audience. Before proceeding to give my
testimonial observations, I must premise that I am a member
of the Methodist Episcopal, otherwise called Wesleyan
persuasion of Christian individuals One bright Sabbath
morning in May, the 15th day of the month, the past year,
while the birds were singing their matutinal songs from the
trees, I sallied forth from the dormitory of my Seminary, to
enjoy the reflections so well suited to that auspicious occasion.
I had not proceeded far, before my ears were accosted
with certain Bacchanalian sounds of revelry, which proceeded
from one of those haunts of vicious depravity, located
at the Cross Roads, near the place of my boyhood, and fashionably
denominated a doggery. No sooner had I passed
beyond the precincts of this diabolical rendezvous of rioting
debauchees, than I heard behind me the sounds of approaching
footsteps as if in pursuit. Having heard previously, sundry
menaces, which had been made by these proposterous
and incarnadine individuals of hell, now on trial in prospect
of condign punishment, fulminated against the longer continuance
of my corporeal salubrity, for no better reason than
that I reprobated their criminal orgies, and not wishing my
reflections to be disturbed, I hurried my steps with a gradual
accelerated motion. Hearing, however, their continued advance,
and the repeated shoutings, articulating the murderous
accents, “Kill him! Kill Shadbelly with his praying
clothes on!” (which was a profane designation of myself
and my religious profession;) and casting my head over my
left shoulder in a manner somehow reluctantly thus, (throwing
his head to one side,) and perceiving their near approximation,
I augmented my speed into what might be denominated
a gentle slope—and subsequently augmented the
same into a species of dog-trot. But all would not do.
Gentlemen, the destroyer came. As I reached the fence and
was about propelling my body over the same, felicitating myself
on my prospect of escape from my remorseless pursuers,
they arrived, and James William Jones, called, by nickname,
Buck Jones, that red-headed character now at the bar
of this honorable court, seized a fence rail, grasped it in both
hands, and standing on tip-toe, hurled the same, with mighty
emphasis, against my cerebellum: which blow felled me to
the earth. Straightway, like ignoble curs upon a disabled
lion, these bandit ruffians and incarnadine assassins leaped
upon me, some pelting, some bruising, some gouging—“every
thing by turns, and nothing long,” as the poet hath it; and
one of them, which one unknown to me—having no eyes behind—inflicted
with his teeth, a grievous wound upon my
person—where, I need not specify. At length, when thus
prostrate on the ground, one of those bright ideas, common
to minds of men of genius, struck me: I forthwith sprang
to my feet—drew forth my cutto—circulated the same with
much vivacity among their several and respective corporeal
systems, and every time I circulated the same I felt their
iron grasp relax. As cowardly recreants, even to their own
guilty friendships, two of these miscreants, though but slightly
perforated by my cutto, fled, leaving the other two, whom
I had disabled by the vigor and energy of my incisions, prostrate
and in my power: these lustily called for quarter,
shouting out “enough!” or, in their barbarous dialect, being
as corrupt in language as in morals, “nuff;” which quarter
I magnanimously extended them, as unworthy of my farther
vengeance, and fit only as subject of penal infliction, at the
hands of the offended laws of their country; to which laws
I do now consign them: hoping such mercy for them as their
crimes will permit; which, in my judgment, (having read the
code,) is not much. This is my statement on oath, fully and
truly, nothing extenuating and naught setting down in malice;
and, if I have omitted any thing, in form or substance, I
stand ready to supply the omission; and if I have stated any
thing amiss, I will cheerfully correct the same, limiting the
averment, with appropriate modifications, provisions and restrictions.
The learned counsel may now proceed more
particularly to interrogate me of and respecting the premises.”

After this oration, Burwell wiped the perspiration from
his brow, and the counsel for the State took him. Few
questions were asked him, however, by that official; he confining
himself to a recapitulation in simple terms, of what
the witness had declared, and procuring Burwell's assent to
his translation. Long and searching was the cross-examination
by the defendants' counsel; but it elicited nothing favorable
to the defence, and nothing shaking, but much to confirm
Burwell's statement.

After some other evidence, the examination closed, and
the argument to the jury commenced. The solicitor very
briefly adverted to the leading facts, deprecated any attempt

to turn the case into ridicule—admitted that the witness
was a man of eccentricity and pedantry, but harmless and
inoffensive—a man evidently of conscientiousness and
respectability; that he had shown himself to be a peaceable
man, but when occasion demanded, a brave man; that there
was a conspiracy to assassinate him upon no cause except an
independence, which was honorable to him, and an attempt
to execute the purpose, in pursuance of previous threats and
severe injury by several confederates on a single person,
and this on the Sabbath, and when he was seeking to avoid
them.

W. M. rose to reply. All Screamersville turned out to
hear him. William was a great favorite—the most popular
speaker in the country—had the versatility of a mockingbird,
an aptitude for burlesque that would have given him
celebrity as a dramatist, and a power of acting that would
have made his fortune on the boards of a theatre. A rich
treat was expected, but it didn't come. The witness had
taken all the wind out of William's sails. He had rendered
burlesque impossible. The thing as acted was more ludicrous
than it could be as described. The crowd had laughed
themselves hoarse already; and even M.'s comic powers
seemed and were felt by himself to be humble imitations of
a greater master. For once in his life, M. dragged his subject
heavily along—the matter began to grow serious—fun
failed to come when M. called it up. M. closed between a
lame argument, a timid deprecation, and some only tolerable
humor. He was followed by E., in a discursive, argumentative,

sarcastic, drag-net sort of speech, which did all that
could be done for the defence. The solicitor briefly closed
—seriously and confidently confining himself to a repetition
of the matters first insisted, and answering some of the points
of the counsel.

It was an ominous fact that a juror, before the jury
retired under leave of the court, recalled a witness for the
purpose of putting a question to him—the question was, how
much the defendants were worth; the answer was, about
two thousand dollars.

The jury shortly after returned into court with a verdict
which “sized their pile.”