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Show A PATRIOTIC JURY. Charles M. Lee was a well-known criminal lawyer of Rochester, N, Y. He summoned up a case with a superfluity super-fluity of gesture, and an affluence of perspiration, that would have astonished astonish-ed even John Graham in his vehement and melting mood. Lee was defendiug an old revolutionary soldier for passing a forged provisory note lor some $30. There was hardly a doubt of his guilt; but Leo contrived to get before the jury the fact that the prisoner, when a dare-devd boy of nineteen, was one of the party that followed Anthony Wayne in his desperate night assault upon Stony Point, and helped to carry the wounded General into the fort during the terrible fray. In summing up, Lee, after getting over the ugly points of the evidence as he best could, then undertook to carry the jury by escalade es-calade on the ground of his revolutionary revolution-ary services. He described in graphic language the bloody attack on Stony Point, the impetuous valor of Wayne, the daring exploit of his client, and wound up with the stunning interrogation: interroga-tion: "Gentlemen of the jury, will you send to the State Prison, for passing pass-ing a contemptible thirty dollar forged note, an old hero of three score and ten, who, in his youth, cheered his country in the darkest hour of the revolution, by storming Stony Point?" This was a poser. The chins ol some of the jury quivered, but the foreman, fore-man, a bluff farmer, put on an air which seemed to say that the storming of Stony Point was a good thing in itt line, but what had it to do with passing pass-ing this forged note ? After being out a couple of hours the jury returned to the court room, when the clerk went through the usual formula : "Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a vordict ?" "We have."-. have."-. "Do you fiud the prisoner at the bat guilty, or not guilty?" "Not guilty, because lie stormed Stony Point," thundered the stalwart foreman, who, it was afterwards learned, was the last to come to an agreement. The audience applauded, the crier rapped to order, the District Attorney objected to the recording of the verdict, and the Judge sent the jury out again, telling the foreman, in a rather sharp tone, that they must find an unconditional uncondi-tional verdict of guilty or not guilty. After an absence of a few minutes they returned, when the foreman rendered a simple verdict of not guilty, adding, however, as he dropped into his seat, "It was a good thing, though, Judge, for the old revolutionary ouss that he stormed Stony Point." Stanton's Bench and Bar of New York. |