Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 268, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1911 — Court Cases Are Less Vitrolic Than In Old Days. [ARTICLE]

Court Cases Are Less Vitrolic Than In Old Days.

Under the heading “Retrospection’'* the Kentland Enterprise thus retrospects about the court bitterness of olden days: The October term of the Newton Circuit Court—and it was fair sample of all terms of recent years—reminded one of a June picnic compared to the courts of earlier days. A fewer number of law suits are instituted these days, and many more cases are compromised. A jury ’seldem tries more than a half dozen suits, sometimes less, and it iq a big term that produces a good headliner. Probably the people are more peaceful and lawabiding now days, but it wasn’t always ®°- I Back in the palmy days of Judge. Ward, Judge Saunderson, Judge Cummings, Judge Thompson, Judge Hammond, D. L. Bishopp, Wilbur Royce, T. C. Annibal, Dawson Smith, and a few others of their calibre, there were legal battles in the old court house that caused the rafters to reverberate for weeks. Eloquence, sarcasm and stinging epithets were hurled back and forth with impunity, and to the uninitiated a pitched battle was expected in the argument of every case. Jurors would come to Kentland clad in new suits, and return home with patches over the hip pockets from long service 'in the jury box. Night sessions were the rule and hung juries burned the midnight oil in their endeavor to convince the other eleven stubborn heads. About the first lawsuit the writer remembers was conducted by two of the above named jrentlemen. For two days' and two nights they fought like, demons. Even vilified and defamed each other until their characters looked like they uad been drenched in ink. And when incase 'Was given to the jury the two lawyers walked arm in arm to the drug store where they enjoyed a smoke,-and laughed at the quandary In which they had left the jurymen. But perhaps the present way accomplishes as good results, with a less consumption of brimstone.