The frequent delivery of his elaborate speech, before an audience of
feathered bipeds and amphibious quadrupeds, had fully prepared M. T.
Pate for the day of trial. On the morning of that eventful day he was
seen seated in court with a grave aspect, which indicated that he
sensibly felt the weight of the tremendous responsibility which rested
upon him.
The prisoner was put in the dock, when the Commonwealth's attorney and
Mr. Pate announced themselves ready for trial, and were each furnished
with a list of the jurors in attendance. The offense charged in the
indictment being felony, the prisoner was entitled to twenty peremptory
challenges. In exercising this important privilege, Mr. Pate displayed
his great knowledge of human nature acquired by a thorough study of
phrenology. He scrutinized closely the head of each juror as he was
called to the book, and when the organ of benevolence appeared to be
diminutive, he cried out, with a loud voice, "Challenge!" But if that
merciful organ was largely developed, he eagerly exclaimed, "Swear
_him_! swear _him_!" putting a strong emphasis on the word "_him_."
A jury having been impaneled, after a brief statement of the case by the
Commonwealth's attorney, the Widow Wild was put upon the stand and
proved property as alleged in the indictment. Pate put her under a
cross-examination, and asked,--
"Madam, what was the sex or gender of your hog?"
The widow hesitated and looked at the judge, who told her to answer the
question.
"It was a gentleman hog," said she.
"How do you know it was a gentleman hog?" asked Pate.
"I know it just as well as I know that you are not a gentleman hog,"
said the widow, tartly.
"You may take your seat," said the lawyer.
"Thank you, sir," said the widow. And with a toss of her head, and a
fiery look of indignation at the attorney, she glided to a seat in the
corner of the room, where she announced to the Professor her intention
to repay Pate for his impudence.
Simon Rump was now sworn, and testified to the facts already stated in
the preceding chapter, and which appeared to be conclusive proof of the
guilt of the accused. But Pate was not discouraged. He put Rump under a
rigorous cross-examination, and asked him if he was not subjected to
psychological illusions. The opposite counsel interposed an objection to
this question, and the court inquired of Mr. Pate his object in asking
it.
"May it please your Honor," said Pate, "I expect to show that this man
Rump is one of those unfortunate individuals who are continually
subjected to psychological illusions. This class are quite numerous, and
not long ago I heard one of them say that he had seen a heavy piano get
up of its own accord and dance on nothing, half-way between the ceiling
and the floor, all the while playing a tune, and keeping time with its
feet to its own music.
"Another man told me that he had seen a certain doctor walk on the air,
and pass out at one window in the third story of a house and come in at
the other. And it is said that this Simon Rump alleges that he once saw
a white ghost, in a clump of willows, in the rear of his barn. Now,
learned men inform us that these objects have no real existence, but are
simply projections from the disordered brain of the person who imagines
that he sees them. May it please your Honor, it is not at all unlikely
that Sam and the hog were nothing more than projections from the
disordered brain of Simon Rump. If a man's brain can project a heavy
piano and cause it to dance a jig on the air, could not Rump's brain
project a big negro with a whole hog on his shoulder?"
In anticipation of this testimony, Pate had carefully prepared his
argument at home and had committed it to memory.
He now succeeded in carrying his point, the court deciding that, upon
general principles, there was nothing to preclude the prisoner's counsel
from proving, if he could so do, that Rump's brain was in such a
disordered condition as to render his testimony unreliable. So the
question was put to Rump, who said that he had walked at all hours of
the night, and had never seen a psychological illusion; that he had
never "heard tell of them" before, and did not know what they were.
After much badgering, however, he admitted that he had seen something
behind his barn, which, to the best of his knowledge and belief, was a
ghost. Having been worried until he had made this admission, poor Rump
was finally dismissed from the stand.
The testimony of the State was here closed.
The court now inquired of Mr. Pate if he had any witnesses to examine on
the part of the defense.
"Yes, may it please your Honor," was the reply, "we have one very
important witness. Call Professor Joseph Boneskull."
Thereupon the crier called, in a loud voice, "Professor Joseph
Boneskull! Professor Joseph Boneskull!"
Immediately a bald-headed little man, about five feet two inches in
stature, walked up to the witness-stand, carrying in his hand a
phrenological plaster cast of a human head. All eyes opened in amazement
and looked with wonder, first at the head on the little man's shoulders,
and then at the head in his hand.
This strange witness, who seemed to come on the stand under the
impression that two heads were better than one, was sworn by the clerk
in the usual form, when Mr. Pate asked,--
"What is your profession, trade, occupation, or calling?"
"My profession," said the witness, "is one of which all sensible men
might be proud. I am a phrenologist. I tell the diversified mental and
moral characteristics of men, women, and children, whether they be white
or whether they be black, by a manipulatory examination of the
superficial, distinctive developments of their respective craniums,
vulgarly denominated skulls."
"Have you, or have you not, made, very recently, a critical examination
of the cranium of the prisoner at the bar?"
"I answer, most unequivocally, I have."
"Can you inform the jury what are the respective developments of the
prisoner's organs of alimentiveness, acquisitiveness, and
conscientiousness?"
Here the opposite counsel rose and objected to the question; saying that
the introduction of such testimony was wholly unwarranted by any of the
established rules of evidence.
After an argument of some length, the court decided that the testimony
in relation to the phrenological developments of Sam was inadmissible.
Thereupon Professor Boneskull retired from the stand, carrying both
heads with him as he went.
"Mr. Pate, have you any further testimony to offer?" inquired the court.
"None whatever," was the mournful response.
"Then, gentlemen, go before the jury," said the judge.
The remarks of the Commonwealth's attorney, which were very brief, are
not remembered; but a portion of Mr. Pate's great argument has been
retained in the memory of men in a fine state of preservation. He spoke
as follows:
"May it please your Honor, and gentlemen of the jury,--No advocate ever
rose to address a Christian jury under so many and such tremendous
disadvantages as now encompass me and my unfortunate but innocent and
virtuous client. The prisoner is unjustly and falsely accused of
stealing the Widow Wild's hog; and that ruthless woman is here to-day
with a heart of flint in her bosom, and with all the influence which the
wealth she has grasped and retained with the harpy hand of avarice
enables her to exert,--she is here to-day not to prosecute, but to
persecute, to calumniate, to crush, and to ruin this poor, unfriended,
innocent, and unoffending African.
"There is another disadvantage under which my client labors. In the
language of a great Roman poet, _hic est niger_, and while men of the
Caucasian race are tried by their peers, that sacred right is withheld
from Sam, simply because he is an African, although it is possible, and
even probable, that he has royal blood in his veins as one of the
descendants of the heroic kings of Timbuctoo. Has not Sam the right to
be tried by his peers? and who in that jury-box can be considered as the
peer of Sam?
"Gentlemen of the jury, I am aware of the tremendous peril which now
environs my client; and I know that my zeal in behalf of this unhappy
criminal has made me many enemies; but, in the eloquent language of that
venerable patriot and signer of our glorious Declaration of
Independence, old John Adams, 'Sink or swim, live or die, survive or
perish,' I give my heart and my voice in defense of Sam.
"Did not the great Cicero defy public opinion when he stood before
Pompey in defense of Milo, who had been indicted for the murder of the
unprincipled Clodius? Did not the celebrated William H. Seward brave
public prejudice when he boldly defended the negro Freeman, who had
murdered six or seven white men and women in a single night? And shall I
hesitate to risk my popularity by defending this innocent African who
has stolen the Widow Wild's hog?
"Gentlemen, may my right hand wither, and my tongue cleave to the roof
of my mouth, when I am afraid to lift my voice to advocate the cause of
my innocent and calumniated client.
"Gentlemen, Luther Martin was one of the greatest lawyers in America,
and did he not say, in his celebrated speech in defense of Aaron Burr,
that 'the law presumes every man to be innocent until he is proved to be
guilty?' And where is the proof of guilt in this case? Do they expect
you to believe the testimony of Simon Rump? Who is Simon Rump? A
miserable and deluded man, who sees a thousand things which never had
any existence except in his disordered imagination. Rump swore on that
stand that he had never seen a psychological illusion.
"Gentlemen, I watched his countenance when he made that statement under
oath, and I observed his lip quiver and his cheek turn pale, for Simon
Rump knew that he was swearing to an unmitigated falsehood. Did he not
on a recent occasion mistake a hickory stick for a snake? and afterwards
use it as a telescope, and said that he beheld the capitol at
Washington? Did he not publicly kiss the Widow Wild's black cook on both
cheeks, believing her to be a beautiful young lady of Caucasian
complexion? Why, gentlemen, Rump's disordered brain is a perfect
machine-shop for the manufacture of psychological illusions, which are
projected as he walks abroad during the day, or sits in the chimney
corner smoking his pipe in the evening. The brain of this unhappy man
projected a hobgoblin as he wandered about in the dark in the rear of
his barn; and could it not just as easily have projected a hog? Why,
gentlemen, the disordered brain of Simon Rump is capable of projecting
an elephant or a rhinoceros! And could it not, then, have projected the
pitiful porker which he alleged he saw in the possession of Sam?
"Gentlemen of the jury, Simon Rump never saw either Sam or the hog on
the occasion referred to in his testimony; he only saw a phantom created
by his diseased mental organization; and when this miserable man
reproduces the illusive images projected from his disordered cranium,
for the purpose of convicting my unfortunate client, each one of you
should exclaim, in the language of the immortal William Shakspeare:
'Hence, horrible shadow!
Unreal mockery, hence!'
"Gentlemen of the jury, had this honorable court permitted me to examine
the learned Professor Boneskull, I could have easily proved by him that
the guilt of Sam is a natural impossibility. This was the very Gibraltar
of our defense, and it has been partially demolished by the court. But,
gentlemen, although you have not the testimony of Professor Boneskull
before you, the prisoner himself is seated in full view, and you can
certainly rely upon the evidence of your own senses, which, according to
Greenleaf, affords the strongest kind of proof. I entreat you to look
upon the goodly countenance of my client and to scrutinize closely his
phrenological developments. The organ of alimentiveness is remarkably
diminutive. Is it not, then, a natural impossibility that Sam should
have so enormous an appetite that he would seek to devour a whole hog?
His organ of acquisitiveness is still smaller, and he could not covet
nor desire another man's property; while his immense development of
conscientiousness renders it impossible for him to steal.
"Gentlemen, the bumps clearly demonstrate that the guilt of the prisoner
is a natural impossibility. Nature herself cries aloud that he is
innocent. Sam--Sam--I say--Sam!" Here Mr. Pate commenced pulling
vigorously at the drawer in the table before him, while Sam, who was
dozing in the prisoners' dock, suddenly started up and exclaimed, in a
loud voice, "Sir!"--at which the bailiffs called out, "Silence!
Silence!" and the judge rapped with his gavel.
Bad luck had been watching the eloquent advocate from the moment he
commenced his argument, and the ugly demon now pounced upon him as he
stood, in anticipation of his triumph, on the ramparts of his Gibraltar.
His oration had been written on half-sheets of paper, which, with two
law-books, he had put in a drawer of the table, intending to take out a
few sheets at a time in the order in which he might want to use them.
When the speaker had concluded the last sentence as above, he put his
hand to the drawer to get the next sheet of manuscript for the purpose
of refreshing his memory; but how great was his horror on finding the
drawer closed in such manner that he could not open it! By some awkward
arrangement of the books one of them had opened, and was acting as a
lock to prevent the drawer from being pulled out.
Mr. Pate pulled vigorously at the drawer, but in vain; at the same time
repeating, in hysterical tones, the words, "Gentlemen of the
jury,"--"Gentlemen of the jury." He was then heard to exclaim, in a sort
of soliloquy, "Gracious heavens! Sam will be sent to the penitentiary
unless I can get that drawer open!" Here he gave another tremendous tug
at the drawer, and saying, "Gentlemen of the jury,"--"Gentlemen of the
jury,"--"A natural impossibility!" sank back in his seat with his face
bathed in a profuse perspiration.
The attention of the jury and spectators was attracted by the strange
conduct of the speaker, and a general peal of laughter broke forth as
soon as they perceived his awkward dilemma. These demonstrations of
mirth, which the court could not wholly repress, so increased the
agitation of poor Pate, that he sprang up and rushed from the court-room
like a man on a wild hunt after his wits.
"He has suddenly seen a psychological illusion," said a pitiless limb of
the law in a loud whisper.
"No," said Toney Belton, "he has gone for a locksmith to open the
drawer, and will soon return and conclude his argument."
But the eloquent advocate never came back to conclude his powerful
appeal in behalf of Sam, who was convicted by the jury and sentenced by
the court to confinement in the penitentiary for the term of two years
and six months.