Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1905 — Cause For Rejoicing?. [ARTICLE]

Cause For Rejoicing?.

Judge Shaw in bis latter days was reverenced by the people of Massachusetts as if be were a demigod, but In bis native county of Barnstable he was reverenced as a god. One winter when the supreme court held a special session at Barnstable for the trial of a capital case Judge Merrick, who was one of the judges, came out of the courthouse just at nightfall, when the whole surface of the earth was covered with ice and slush, slipped and fell heavily, breaking three of his ribs. He was taken up and carried to bis room at the hotel and hiy on a sofa waiting for the doctor to come. While the Judge lay groaning and in agony the old janitor of the courthouse, who had helped pick him up, wiped off the wet from his clothes and said to him, “Judge Merrick, how thankful you must be It was not the chief justice!” Poor Merrick could not help laughing, though his broken ribs were lacex-ating bis flesh.—George F. Hoar in Scribner's.