University of Virginia Library

A “HOOSIER” IN SEARCH OF JUSTICE.

About one hundred and twenty miles from New Orleans
reposes, in all rural happiness, one of the pleasantest
little towns in the south, that reflects itself in the mysterious
waters of the Mississippi.

To the extreme right of the town, looking at it from
the river, may be seen a comfortable-looking building,
surrounded by China trees; just such a place as sentimental
misses dream of when they have indistinct notions
of “settling in the world.”

This little “burban handbox,” however, is not occupied
by the airs of love, nor the airs of the lute, but by
a strong limb of the law, a gnarled one too, who
knuckles down to business, and digs out of the “uncertainties
of his profession” decisions, and reasons, and
causes, and effects, nowhere to be met with, except in
the science called, par excellence, the “perfection of human
reasons.”

Around the interior walls of this romantic-looking
place may be found an extensive library, where all
the “statutes,” from Moses' time down to the present
day, are ranged side by side; in these musty books the
owner revels day and night, digesting “digests,” and
growing the while sallow, with indigestion.

On the evening-time of a fine summer's day, the sage
lawyer might have been seen walled in with books and
manuscripts, his eye full of thought, and his bald high
forehead sparkling with the rays of the setting sun, as
if his genius was making itself visible to the senses;
page after page he searched, musty parchments were
scanned, an expression of care and anxiety indented
itself on the stern features of his face, and with a sigh
of despair he desisted from his labors, uttering aloud
his feelings that he feared his case was a hopeless one.

Then he renewed again his mental labor with tenfold
vigor, making the very silence, with which he pursued
his thoughts, ominous, as if a spirit were in his presence.

The door of the lawyer's office opened, there pressed
forward the tall, gaunt figure of a man, a perfect model
of physical power and endurance—a western flatboatman.
The lawyer heeded not his presence, and started as if
from a dream, as the harsh tones of inquiry, grated upon
his ear, of,

“Does a 'Squire live here?”

“They call me so,” was the reply, as soon as he
had recovered from his astonishment.

“Well, 'Squire,” continued the intruder, “I have
got a case for you, and I want jestess, if it costs the best
load of produce that ever come from In-di-an.”

The man of the law asked what was the difficulty.

“It's this, 'Squire: I'm bound for Orleans, and put
in here for coffee and other little fixins; a chap with a
face whiskered up like a prairie dog, says, says he,

“`Stranger, I see you've got cocks on board of your
boat—bring one ashore, and I'll pit one against him
that'll lick his legs off in less time than you could gaff
him.' Well, 'Squire, I never take a dar. Says I,
`Stranger, I'm thar at wunce;' and in twenty minutes the
cocks were on the levee, like parfect saints.

“We chucked them together, and my bird, 'Squire,
now mind, 'Squire, my bird never struck a lick, not a
single blow, but tuck to his heels and run, and by thunders,
threw up his feed, actewelly vomited. The stakeholder
gave up the money agin me, and now I want
jestees; as sure as fogs, my bird was physicked, or he'd
stood up to his business like a wild cat.”

The lawyer heard the story with patience, but flatly
refused to have any thing to do with the matter.

“Perhaps,” said the boatman, drawing out a corpulent
pocket-book, “prehaps you think I can't pay—here's
the money; help yourself—give me jestess, and draw on
my purse like an ox team.”

To the astonishment of the flatboatman, the lawyer
still refused, but unlike many of his profession, gave his

would be client without charge; some general advice
about going on board of his boat, shoving off for New
Orleans, and, abandoning the suit altogether.

The flatboatman stared with profound astonishment,
and asked the lawyer “If he was a sure enough 'Squire.”

Receiving an affirmative reply, he pressed every argument
he could use, to have him undertake his case and
get him “jestess;” but when he found that his efforts
were unavailing, he quietly seated himself for the first
time, put his hat aside,—crossed his legs,—then looking
up to the ceiling with the expression of great patience,
he requested the “'Squire, to read to him the Louisiana
laws on cock-fighting.”

The lawyer said that he did not know of a single
statute in the State upon the subject. The boatman
started up as if he had been shot, exclaiming—

“No laws in the State on cock-fighting? No, no,
'Squire, you can't possum me; give us the law.”

The refusal again followed; the astonishment of the
boatman increased, and throwing himself in a comicoheroic
attitude, he waved his long fingers around the
sides of the room and asked,

“What all them thar books were about?”

“All about the law.”

“Well then, 'Squire, am I to understand that not
one of them thar books contain a single law on cock-fighting?”

“You are.”

“And, 'Squire, am I to understand that thar ain't
no laws in Louisiana on cock-fighting?”

“You are.”

“And am I to understand that you call yourself a
'Squire, and that you don't know any thing about cock-fighting?”

“You are.”

The astonishment of the boatman at this reply for a
moment was unbounded, and then suddenly ceased; the
awe with which he looked upon “the 'Squire” also
ceased, and resuming his natural awkward and familiar
carriage, he took up his hat, and walking to the door,
with a broad grin of supreme contempt in his face, he
observed,—

“That a 'Squire that did not know the laws of cock-fighting,
in his opinion, was distinctly an infernal old
chuckel-headed fool!”