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Show SELECTED. A 5ECRO LAWYEa IS EXGLIA'D. A somewhat novel scene occurred. c9Ti a London ocTTe?pondenc, ar the O.d Baiiev, namely the appearance of an American negro as couoiel in an important criminal case. The cae V3j- that of a shoemaker named Lean-, who wai charged with niurderice a man who worked in the fame snop with him. He was defended by Che,-Krr, Che,-Krr, a negro fjrmerly of Philadelphia, who had a a junior a young Scotchman Scotch-man named Hunter. I was one of a large company who had been drawn to the oid Newgate court-room that small and dinay hall which has sent more people to death than any on earth by the interest of the case; and it was curious to note the sensation when this very black man, with his white whig and his black gown took his place among the eminent barristers, barris-ters, who treated him with the utmost consideration. Chester is a full-blooded full-blooded negro, tall, well formed, and with a sensible face adorned with moustache and beard. He has a good voice and manner, and uses excellent excel-lent English, although there was a little lit-tle too much "elegance" foi the cold, conversational style of the English court room. It was his maiden speech at the bar, and the friends of his race felt regret that he should have had such a bad case to defend. The prisoner, pris-oner, Leary, had inflicted no fewer than seven stabs on his victim with a shoemaker's knife, and it was rezarded as such a clear case that the judge did not take pains to conceal the black cap which he brought with him when he took his seat. Yet, strange to say, the negro lawyer, not by his speech, but by an' adroit piece of examination, managed to save his client's life. It had been proved that Lcary had a light with the deceased on a Sunday-night, Sunday-night, aud had been severely beaten by him, one blow received by a fall having cut his head so that he had to be taken to a hospital to have the wound dressed. He then went back to the houe of the master shoemaker, where four of the men slept in the same room; among others the prisoner and the deceased slept in the room in different bds. The man who slept with the prisoner depo;ei that he saw him in the morning examining exam-ining the deceased man's bed. The prisoner pris-oner then went into the workshop adjoining ad-joining and returned with a heavy fie, with which lie struck his enemy. This afterwards led ru t.liA n.ountcr 111 which the prisoner stabbed the deceased. de-ceased. Now, the malice and deliberation needed to prove the case one of murder mur-der rested mainly on this examination of the bed by the prisoner at 4 o'clouk in the morning. But the negro lawyer, law-yer, who had some American experience exper-ience to make him keen about race prejudices, detected a certain animus in the witness, a Scotchman, against his client, an Irishman. On this dark-looking dark-looking point of examining the bed on which the victim lay, he subjected the Scotch witness to such a rigorous cross-examination cross-examination as to show that the prisoner prison-er had risen and gone to the bed in question for a purpose easier to imagine imag-ine than to renort, but one quite innocent. inno-cent. By bringing out this, and at the showing that the witness who had suppressed sup-pressed so important a fact might have colored his other evidenoe, Chester succeeded in inspiring the jury with a doubt as to the malice aforethought, of which they gave the prisoner the benefit. So the man escaped the gallows gal-lows and got ten years' penal servitude for manslaughter. It is doubtful whether the confederate leader, Benjamin, Benja-min, who now practices at the same bar with the negro, Chester, has had any more salient sue ;ess. |