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building, and we went to trial. The fact that he took a key out of a door lock and ran away with it was proven beyond all question. While I was cross-examining a witness,--the man that lost the key,--an elderly member of our bar and friendly to me, said:-- Butler, why do you take such cases, when you know you are sure to be beaten? It's a custom I have, I said. When the witness stepped down the district attorney said to the court: The government rests its case here. I said: Mr. Attorney, you don't intend to ask for a verdict of the jury in a case like this, do you? I should like to know why not, said he. Well, I answered, I will tell the court. Larceny is the taking of personal property furtively and devoting it to one's own use. Here it is proven that the prisoner took a key out of a door and ran away with it. Now, if your Honor please, when a key is in its proper place in the door it cannot be stolen, because then it is real estate. When a man dies, his persona
the Attorney and Solicitor General of England, established his opinion that the Writs themselves, which had begun the controversy, were not warranted by law. The opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor General, I could not find in the State Paper office, nor at the Treasury; but that it was adverse to the views of Charles Townshend appears from a letter of Mr. Grey Cooper to Mr. Nuthall, 14 Feb. 1767, in Treasury Letter Book, XXIII. 416, directing him forthwith to lay this matter before Mr. Attorney and Mr. Solicitor General, together with the case and their opinion, for their reconsideration. That there was in the reconsideration no change of the adverse opinion, may be inferred from the fact, that the Treasury gave up the question, took no step against Malcom, and introduced into the American Revenue Bill just the clause which, from Townshend's point of view, an adverse opinion would have rendered necessary. Besides, had the opinion been favorable to the Crown Officers, it would
f the ambiguous character of the verdict; the other by the counsel for the Crown, to compel the defendant to shew cause why the verdict should not be entered up according to the legal import of the words. The case having been argued, the Court decided that a new trial should be granted. When it came on, the Attorney General observed to the Chief Justice that he had not the original newspaper by which he could prove the publication.--Lord Mansfield briefly replied, "that is not my fault, Mr. Attorney," and thus terminated the trial. It appears that the foreman of the jury, on the first trial, had put the paper into his pocket, and had afterwards destroyed it.--The trial cost Woodfall, from first to last about £120, ($600.) Almon, who was also prosecuted, says it cost him £400; a statement altogether improbable, since he only sold a magazine, which he did not print, having the obnoxious letter in it. This charge of Lord Mansfield to the jury produced a profound sensation throughout th
o a camp of conscription, there to repent at his leisure of having expended his money most unprofitably, except to the lucky Rev. Mr. Orvis. Should Judge Halyburton, on Monday next, when he renders a decision, release Orvis, we suppose the only remedy of the luckless Allen will be an action against Orvis for damages, or the institution of criminal proceedings against him for obtaining money upon false pretences, Orvis having bound himself to act as Allen's substitute for the war. Allen, we learn, is a poor overseer, and the father of a large and helpless family, who spent every cent which he was worth in procuring a substitute for the war in the person of the Rev. Attorney, Mr. Orvis. The restitution to the poor man of the thousand dollars which he paid his substitute would, not enable him to procure another, as five thousand dollars is now paid for able bodied substitutes in the market. His case is peculiarly hard, and common justice, if not law, demands his protection.