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Show PRESERVING DIGNITY - J. York Sawyer, a pioneer judge of Illinois, stood firmly on his dignity. At Springfield where there was a log courthouse, and a jail was extemporized from a log stable, he was addressing a horse thief as follows: "If such things were allowed, we could keep no horses in our stables, no cattle in our yards, no hogs in our pens, no chickens on our roosts." A tall, lean rail-splitter standing in the crowd, hereupon cried out, "Hit him again, old gimlet-eye; he's got no friends." The judge, feeling that his dignity was outraged, calmly asked - "Who said that?" The rail-splitter, raising himself head and shoulders above the crowd, said, "This old hoss said it." Judge Sawyer contentiously remarked, "Mr. Sheriff, put that ‘old hoss' in the county's stable." Sheriff obeyed, and the rail-splitter had to remain in the log gaol over night. |