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Show RECONSTRUCTION JUDGE CAME TO FRONT AFTER WAR In connection with the death of former for-mer Judge Thomas J. Mackey.of South Carolina, the News and Courier, of Charleston, S. C. reproduces a characteristic charac-teristic charge delivered by him from the bench illustrative of his methods and of conditions in South Carolina in reconstruction times, A Kcpublic.au member of congress named A, S. Wallace Wal-lace had given a note tor .$200 as part, payment for a biography of himself, published by some hack writers. It was a favorite weakness of the scalawags, scala-wags, carpetbaggers and shabby adventurers adven-turers who ruled tho state to -poso as old-time South Carolina gentlemen. When Wallaco made the note he was asked what interest should be stated in case of his failure to meet it at maturity, ma-turity, lie auswered grandly that if he fuiled to pay promptly interest might be charged at 15 per cent an hour. The noto was so written. When it was overdue five years an ingenious and painstaking lawyer calculated that Wallace Wal-lace owed his bioghaphers $93,000 and brought suit for that amount in Jude Mackcy's court. Tho .judgo in his charge said tho evidence showed that the biographers had described A. S. Wallace as a patriot, a Christian and a gentleman and thereby had damned themselves hopelessly "and inevitably. Ho quoted scripture ' to 7irovo that the wholo world is inadequate compensation to a man for the loss of his soul. Therefore, There-fore, tho sum claimed by tho biographers biogra-phers was moderate and he directed that the foreman of the jury come to tho desk and sigu a verdict for the full amount. Maekoy at that time was a .Republican, but. as may bo guessed from his charge and' comments, his feeling feel-ing toward Representative Wallaco was i not. cordial. Mackey was one of tho smartest and most reckless of the reckless adventurers adventur-ers developed by reconstruction and the Palmetto state is full of stories of memories of him. It was he who announced, an-nounced, either from tho bench or in a public speech, that he had mado careful care-ful investigation and discovered that Franklin J. Moses, Jr.. was a lineal descendant de-scendant of tho impenitent thief of tho crucifixion. Discussing tho habit oC "Tharsnarilla" Wright, tho lisping Philadelphia negro who was an associate associ-ate .justice of the supreme court, of getting get-ting drunk and preaching in the Columbia Co-lumbia barrooms, Judge Mackey said he had investigated Wright's ancestry and accounted for his inebriate piety by thc-fact thc-fact that his remote ancestor on the banks of the Congo had, siugle-handed, eaten avery devout Wcsleyan missionary, mission-ary, thoroby acquiring religious tendencies tenden-cies which he transmitted to his posterity. Judge Mackey, although a native of Charleston, was fond of amusing himself him-self with the peculiarities of that ancient an-cient and rcspectablo city. On ono occasion oc-casion ho described dramatically tho finding of a dead body at a point equally equal-ly distant from Charleston, Augusta and Columbia and how a post-mortem discovered dis-covered that the stomach of .tho corpse contained three grains of rice and a spoonful of cistern water, whereupon the coroner promptly shipped the "body to Charleston as being proved by the. evidence evi-dence unquestionably to belong there. Another of his stories was that he had been forced to flee from Charleston while yet a youth because ho had inadvertently inad-vertently remarked that in tho world there were steeples taller than St. Michael's. Mi-chael's. Tn the year of the revolution, J87G, he "crossed Jordan" as tho process pro-cess of going over to tho Democrats wns described, and hecame ono of Hampton Hamp-ton 's most effective, unscrupulous and daring supportors. Ho announced his change of heart by riding into a public pub-lic meeting at Edgefield on an ox and wearing a red shirt.. Going down to appear ap-pear before the supremo court in support sup-port of one of his peculiarly outrageous opinions, favoring tho Democrats, he told Ihe people who gathered at a station sta-tion to hear him talk that he intended to present to the court thirteen conclusive conclu-sive reasons in support of his position, which reasons he had then on his person. per-son. Whereupon ho produced and exhibited ex-hibited two six-shooters and a bowio knife. He was the originator of the assertion as-sertion that the Republican party hud seven distinct principles five loaves and two small fishes. Probably no more "brilliant man ever sat, on the bench anywhere. When ho was made a nudge he never had practiced prac-ticed law and so far as can bo ascertained ascer-tained nevor had studied it. Yet ho always could find law for any decision or ruling he saw fit to make. If he couldn't find ite ho invented it as he went, along. His impulses were good, he was a fighter from the heart and he had a way of arriving at substantial .-justice by the most absurd routes. He delighted to say the wildcat and most ridiculous things with an air of pro found gravit3r and intensity. He was a born actor and lovo of .applause was, perhaps, tho ruling passiou of his life. Perhaps there have been and are other men like him, but for the full development develop-ment of a character and characteristics like Mb, stress and turmoil and times of intense passiou and strong crises arc needed. Richmond (Va.) News Leader. |