Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1889 — THE QUAKER CITY'S SOLOMON. [ARTICLE]

THE QUAKER CITY'S SOLOMON.

Rough and Ready Decisions bY Magistrate Bob Smith of Philadelphia. “She has a right to ‘sass’ her husband.” “A man who has lived for six years with a woman who has a tongue like a bell clapper bias had a full share of punishment. --, • 1 The Solomon who utters these decisions, which have a smattering of common sensor Ifnot of law, is big bluff Magistrate Bob Smith, says the Philadelphia Record. His correct name is Robert R. Smith, but he is addressed by his full name only by utter strangers. From one end of the city to the other he is known as “Bob.” No magistrate is so well known in Philadelphia, and the fame of his decisions and judicial utterances has been carried to distant states. The magistrate is of sturdy frame, with a ruddy face and bright eyes, and he speaks in a sharp off-hand way that carries terror to the evil-doer. The especial antipathy of the judge is a wife beater or a pusband who has in other ways been remiss in his marital relations. His language to such affehdersJs severe. “You big, bulking brute!” he said to one of these creatures a while ago; “it’s a pity the whipping-post was ever abolished. Fellows like you ought to be tied up and lashed.” The justice is an ardent advocate of the restoration of the whipping-post for certain offenses committed by men, and it has been said that he also favors a return to the ducking-stool as a method of punishment for women of unruly tongues. He looks upon a common scold as being almost as bad as a wifebeater. —- “Now shut up and get out of here, all of you!” he has sometimes to say when a lot of wrangling women get to squabbling and bandying words in the sacred precincts of his court “I’ve heard all I want to from you. Skip now or I’ll put you all under bail.” But the most recent decisions of the magistrate have won for him the undying love of womanhood. He has decided that it is a woman’s right to “sass” her husband. The occasion of this queer decision arose from a suit brought by an up-town woman against her husband. “He beat me till I was black and blue,” the woman testified. “What did you do that for, you brute?’’said the justice. “She sassed me,” replied the husband. “Well, a woman has a riglit to sass her husband,” retorted Justice Smith. “Find SI,OOO bail, Madame, you go home and leave this fellow to me. ” The ink had scarcely dried on the decision in this case when another attracted the attention of the justice. A woman with rather lively tongue appeared against a man she called her husband. The fellow was as meek as Moses and about twenty-five years older than the woman. She started off with her story at a 180-words-arminute gait “Hold on!” cried the magistrate. “He’s a beast,” said the woman. , “How long have you been married to that tongue?” asked the justice. “Six years,” replied his meekness in the dock. “You’ve been punished enough. Open the gate and let him go,” said Smith. Beginning life as a machinist, Judge Smith in these later year? h« turned his attention to agriculture, and is famous as a g ntleman farmer atNorth Wales on the North Penn railroad. He carries into farming the same direct methods that have distinguished him as a justice, and sometimes uses his knowledge of farming with great effect 'n his court “So y >u arc a farm hand, are you?” he has been known to say to some unfortunate brought before him at Fifth and Chestnut streets, and who has given that as his occupation. “Well, now, how would you irrigate a field of rutabagas?” This generally has the effect ol breaking up tho Bupposed farm hand, and the judge smiles triumphantly to Clerk Moffett at bis unmasking of such deception. -