Some Curious Decisions. lor; that plaintiff intruded, and was put out by defendant. Courting is a public neces sity and must not be interrupted. Therefore the law of Illinois will hold that a parent has no legal right in a room when courting is afoot. Defendant is discharged, and plain tiff must pay costs." Some forty years ago a brace of very sin gular verdicts were given in a case on Vancouver's Island. An Indian, stealing potatoes in a garden, was shot dead by the owner of the premises. A redskin more or or less was not considered a very important matter by the people, and the man who had done the shooting was a very popular citizen; but the magistrate of the place felt it his duty to have the case looked into, so an in quest was held, and the farmer was arrested and tried for manslaughter. Evidence showed that the redskin had been shot through the lungs, and one witness testified that the prisoner had said to him, "Jack, I've killed an Indian! " It was a very clear case against the farmer, and the jury retired on it. In half an hour they returned. "We find," said the foreman, " that the Indian was worried by a dog." "A what?" ex claimed the judge. " Worried by a dog, sir," the foreman repeated. "What do you mean?" asked the puzzled judge. "There is no dog in this case. I cannot accept any such finding as that," and again he went over the points of the case, reminded them that shot had been found in the dead man's body, and then sent them back to their rooms to find a verdict reasonably connected with the facts. Before they appeared again a full hour had passed. As they sidled back into the court room the judge drew a paper towards him to record their finding. "Now men, what do you say?" "We say," was the reply, "that the Indian was killed by falling over a cliff." The judge shuffled his papers together and told the jurymen they might go to their work; he would find a verdict for them himself. For miles around the spot
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where the dead body was found, the country was as level as a table. A somewhat similar sort of verdict was once given by a jury in England. In a trial for murder, Baron Parke, the presiding judge, told the jury that as there was very little, if any, evidence of malice adduced against the prisoner, they could, if they thought fit, find him guilty of manslaughter only. "Just," added his lordship, "as in an indictment for child-murder you may ac quit the woman of murder and find her guilty of concealing the birth of the child." The jury were out for several hours, and when they returned into the court, they gave the verdict, " Concealment of birth." Speaking of jurymen, I am reminded of an incident related by Mr. Henry L. Clinton in his interesting book " Extraordinary Cases." It was during the trial of Polly Bodine for murder, in 1844. The jury had been out for two days and two nights. Eleven of them were for conviction, but the twelfth — a country fellow who was some thing of an oracle in his village — held out stubbornly against it, and at length the jury had to be discharged. "Were you for acquittal?" this juror was afterwards asked. "No." "Were you then for conviction?" "No." "What verdict were you in favor of?" "No verdict at all." "How is that?" "It was all circumstantial evidence, I would not render any verdict on circumstan tial evidence — that is not unless it was in the fourth degree." "What do you mean by circumstantial evi dence in the fourth degree?" "Why, four eye-witnesses who swear that they saw the act committed." "Thus," says Mr. Clinton, "was the life of Polly Bodine saved by this incorrigible juror who invented the doctrine of circum stantial evidence in the fourth degree."
