Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1879 — The Jovial Judge. [ARTICLE]

The Jovial Judge.

London Telegraph. The proclivity of joking in courts of law Is a homage paid to a deep human instinct. People like justice best when it unbends a little, and injustice Itself may be softened by ingenious judges

who conciliate the loeer with an irresistible jest. Even among a grave people like the Turks, this love of humor ofteu overpowers complaint. There is a story in the East of a Pasha who had received a present of two fat geeee. These succulent birds were very scarce at the time, and the great man called a feast of his intimates, where roast goose, stuffed with pistachios, was to form the central dish. But a rival magnate, who greatly wanted a goose for dinner, had offered the cook 500 piasters for a bird, whereupon that too venal officer repaired to the Cadi and said: “If I give your worship a goose, will you see me safe, supposing anybody complains about the other one?” The magistrate winked and took his bird—the other also disappeared—and at the banquet, wheu the eagerly expected dish should have been produced, there was an awful disappointment; the cook, being summoned, protested with many protestations that the geeee had “flown away.” “Recover them,” the infuriated Pasha cried, “or I will have thee before the Cadi for the basinado.” The guilty cook-rushed madly along the high road, wondering what to do, when ne was asked by a donkey driver, “in the naraeof Allah,” to help him .to lift hLs beast, which had fallen. He forthwith pulled at the donkey’s tail with such thoughtless ftiry that it came off in his hand, and the cook then rushed on more frantically than ever, pursued by the cries and curses of the driver. A little further he ran in his blundering haste against a Christian and knocked the man’s pipestick into his eye, destroying it Yet a little further, still wildly hurrying, he came around the corner full tilt upon a very fat and ugly Bulgarian matron, who, being in an Interesting condition, was so upset that she then and there suffered miscarriage. Being chased by the husband ana some Zaptieths, the miserable man ran up the steps of a minaret and when the muezzin would have seized him leaped down to the earth in his desperation, from the first platform, killing a Greek who chanced to be sitting with his brother below.

Such a situation as that presented in the above narative, it must be confessed, was embarrassing, even to the humor and resources of a Turkish judge. To the original sin of the goose were now added four separate misdemeanors, and the spectacle presented shortly afterward before the Cadi was one of terrific hubbub, though the prisoner exhibited a strange confidence, which proved not unfounded. First came the Pasha, who told how the sinful cook had pretended that geese, plucked and drawn, could fly away. “Dost thou, then, doubt, brother," said the Judge, “the power of Allah to call the dead to life? Let us not limit the Divine might by our foolish disbelief. It may have been so. Go in peace." Next the donkey man held up the rest tail of his beast and cried for justice, but the Cadi said: “Give him the donkey, my son, to feed and use until the tail has grown again; then he shall restore it to thee." The Christian pointed to his missing orb, aud clamored for punishment. “It is written," said the Judge, “that one eye of a believer equals two of an infidel. Do thou, therefore, suffer me to put out thine other eye, and then it will be but right that I should restore restitution by removing one from this abominable cook." The Christian deEarted,and was succeeded by the injured usband, who told his woes. “By the prophet’s beard!’’quoth the Cadi, “I see no other way in this save that thou shouldst divorce the lady and marry her to the cook. Afterward, if it be Heaven’s will that she come again unto thejiame state, let him send her back to thee, and all will be well." This suitor also declined to proceed to execution, and there was only left the Greek, who vociferated for retaliation on the slayer of his brother. “Inshalleh!" said the Judge, “truly ‘hurry is of the devil,’ as the wise sayi lhe cook shall suffer for it; this is but just. Get thou, therefore, to the top of the minaret, and jump down on this offender, whom I will place below, and it shall be that if thou slayest him none shall complain." Hereupon the Greek also left the court like the others, amid acclamations from the bystanders, who were loud iu praise of the Cadi’s wonderful decrees; but that functionary was presently heard to whisper to the cook, as he quitted the court, “Never you send me any more geese, my friend."