University of Virginia Library

24. MR. ONSLOW.

It is amusing to witness the excitement of the lawyers
concerned in the trial of a long and severely-contested case,
after the argument is concluded, and the judge is giving the
jury charges as to the law. In Mississippi, the practice is
for the counsel to prepare written charges after the case is
argued, to be offered when the jury are about retiring from
the box; and the Court gives or refuses them as it approves
or disapproves of them,—sometimes altering them to suit
its own views of the law.

On one occasion, a case was tried of some difficulty and
complexity, involving the title to a negro, which had been
run off from a distant part of the State, and sold in Noxubee
county by a man, who had, previously to running him,
mortgaged him to the plaintiff. The negro had been in the
county for a good while before he was discovered; and the
present holder had been sued—Mr. Onslow being the attorney
for the mortgagee, and indeed it was understood, having some
other rights in the litigation than those of counsel. The
defendant had retained Henry G—y and James T.

H—, Esqrs., ingenious youth, who were duly and fully
prepared, and especially willing, to exhaust all the law there
was, and a good deal there wasn't, to defeat the plaintiff's
recovery in the premises.

Mr. Onslow appeared alone. Indeed, he would have
scorned assistance in such a proceeding. He had come on
horseback from the Mississippi Swamp, on no other business
than to attend to this case. His preparation was arduous
and thorough—his zeal apostolic. No doubt he had
made the pine-trees sweat rezinous tears, “voiding their
rheum,” and had made the very stumps ache, and the leaves
quiver, as he journeyed on, rehearsing the great speech he intended
to make in the to-be celebrated case of Hugginson vs.
McLeod. He was a peculiar-looking man, was Mr. Onslow.
Rising six feet in his stockings, large-boned, angular, muscular,
without an ounce of surplus flesh, he was as active and
as full of energy as a panther. His head was long and
large, the features irregular and strongly-marked, face florid,
eyes black, restless and glaring, mouth like a wolf-trap, and
muscles twitching and shaking like a bowl of jelly, and
hair a reddish-brown—about as much of it as Absalom carried,
but of such independence of carriage that it stuck up
all around, “like quills upon the fretful porcupine.” He
was a sort of walking galvanic battery; charged full in every
fibre with the electric current. If a man had run his hand
over his hair in a dark room across the grain, the sparks
would have risen as from the back of a black cat. We have
not heard from him since the spiritual rappings, table tippings,

and movings were the vogue,—but we will go our old
hat against a julep, that if the spirits would not come at his
bidding, they have quit coming from the vasty deep, or closed
business, Mr. N. P. Tallmadge, or any other medium to the
contrary notwithstanding: and if he couldn't set a table
going by the odic force, the whole thing is a proved humbug.
He was a speaker of decided power,—indeed of tremendous
power. When he spoke, he spoke in earnest. He
went it with a most vigorous vim. He had taken a cataract
and hurricane for his model. Such a bellowing,—such a fiery
fury, of fuss and noise, would sink into a modest silence a
whole caravan of howling dervishes. Jemmy T. thought he
could be heard when he let himself out two miles: I think
this extravagant,—I should think not more than a mile and
a half. When he drew in a long breath, and bore his weight
on his voice, the very rafters seemed to move: but his voice
was not all. He grew as rampant as a wolf in high oats,
—jumping up, rearing around, and squatting low, and sidling
about—forwards, backwards—beating benches—knocking
the entrails out of law-books—running over chairs, and
clearing out the area for ten feet around him, whirling about
like a horse with the blind staggers; while he quivered all over
like a galvanized frog. He usually let off as much caloric
as would have fed the lungs of the Ericsson.

Innumerable were the points and half-points made during
the progress of the case, and Onslow was fortunate enough
to win on most of these. At every ruling that was made
in his favor, he would suck in his breath with a long inspiration,

smile a spasmodic smile of grisly satisfaction, and
smack his lips. He was in high feather, and on excellent
terms with the judge, whose rulings he would indorse with
marked empressement.

After he had bellowed his last, he took his seat; and
the judge asked the counsel if they desired any charges.

Onslow rose, and told the Court he had a few. He
drew out of his hat about six pages of foolscap, on which
was written twenty-two charges, elaborately drawn out,—
some of them long enough to have been divided into chapters,—and
the whole might have been modified and indexed
to advantage. The defendant's counsel, while Onslow was
reading his charges, sent up to the bench a single instruction
couched in a few words.

Onslow read his charge 1. in a loud and argumentative
voice—the Court gave it: “Exactly, your honor,” observed
O., and so on to the 22d, which was also given, Onslow bowing
and smiling, and his face glowing out, from anxiety to
assurance, as the charge was read and given, like a lightningbug's
tail, giving light out of darkness.

After he got through reading the charges, he handed
them to the judge. Hon. H. S. B. was on the bench—one
of the best judges in the State. He turned to the jury:
“Gentlemen,” said he, “listen to the instructions the Court
gives you in this case.”

He then read the first instruction of Onslow, in a clear,
decided tone; at the conclusion of it O. sighed heavily,—
so with the next, and so on; Onslow all this time gazing

with rapt attention upon the judge, and his mouth motioning
with the judge's—like a school-boy writing O's in his
first copy—and at the end of every charge ejaculating,
“Exactly, your honor!”

After getting through these charges, the judge remarked:
“And now, gentlemen, I give you this charge for the defendant.”
Onslow stopped breathing, as the judge slowly syllabled
out, “But notwithstanding—all—this—it being—an
admitted—fact—that—the mortgage—was—not—recorded
—in—Noxu—bee—county—you—must—fi—n—d for the
d—e—fen—dant.” As this was going on, Onslow was completely
psychologized: he stared until his eyes looked as if
they would pop out—his lower jaw dropped—and putting
his hand to his head, involuntarily exclaimed—“Oh, hell!
your honor!”

He left in the course of ten minutes, to start on a return
journey of three hundred miles, in mid-winter, and such
roads—through the woods to the Mississippi Swamp.—
“Phansy his phelinks.”