Peter was obstinate; and at last Mr. Stephens told him to make a speech himself, if he thought one could be made.
"I will," said Peter Bennett, "if Bobby Toombs won't be too hard on me."
Senator Toombs promised, and Peter began:—
"Gentlemen of the jury,—You and I is plain farmers, and if we don't stick together these 'ere lawyers and doctors will get the advantage of us. I ain't no lawyer nor doctor, and I ain't no objections to them in their proper place; but they ain't farmers, gentlemen of the jury.
"Now, this man Royston was a new doctor, and I went for him for to come an' to doctor my wife's sore leg. And he come an' put some salve truck onto it, and some rags, but never done it one bit of good, gentlemen of the jury. I don't believe he is no doctor, no way. Thar is doctors as is doctors, sure enough; but this man don't earn his money, and if you send for him, as Mrs. Sarah Atkinson did for a negro boy as worth $1,000, he just kills him and wants pay for it."
"I don't," thundered the doctor.
"Did you cure him? " asked Peter, with the slow accents of a judge with the black cap on.
The doctor was silent, and Peter proceeded:
"As I was a sayin', gentlemen of the jury, we farmers, when we sell our cotton, has got to give valley for the money we ask, and doctors ain't none too good to be put to the same rule. And I don't believe this Sam Royston is no doctor, nohow."
The physician again put in his oar with, "Look at my diploma, if you think I am no doctor."
"His diploma!" exclaimed the new-fledged orator, with great contempt,—"his diploma! Gentlemen, that is a big word for printed sheepskin, and it didn't make no doctor of the sheep as first wore it, nor does it of the man as now carries it. A good newspaper has more in it, and I pint out to you that he ain't no doctor at all."
The man of medicine was now in a fury, and screamed out: "Ask my patients if I am not a doctor!"
"I asked my wife," retorted Peter, "an' she said as how she thought you wasn't."
"Ask my other patients," said Dr. Royston.
This seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back; for Peter replied, with look and tone of unutterable sadness,—
"That is a hard sayin', gentlemen of the jury, and one as requires me to die or to have power as I've hearn tell ceased to be exercised since the Apostles. Does he expect me to bring the angel Gabriel down to toot his horn before his time, and cry aloud, 'Awake, ye dead, and tell this court and jury your opinion of Royston's practice'? Am I to go to the lonely churchyard and rap on the silent tomb, and say to um as is at last at rest from physic and doctor bills, 'Git up here, you, and state if you died a nateral death, or was hurried up by some doctors'? He says, ask his patients; and, gentlemen of the jury, they are all dead! Where is Mrs. Beazley's man Sam? Go ask the worms in the graveyard where he lies. Mr. Peake's woman Sarah was attended by him, and her funeral was appinted and he had the corpse ready. Where is that likely Bill as belonged to Mr. Mitchell? Now in glory, a' expressin' his opinion of Royston's doctrin'. Where is that baby gal of Harry Stephen's? She are where doctors cease from troublin' and the infants are at rest.
"Gentlemen of the jury, he has et chicken enough at my house to pay for his salve, and I furnished the rags, and I don't suppose he charges for makin' of her worse, and even he don't pretend to charge for curin' of her, and I am humbly thankful that he never give her nothin' for her inwards, as he did his other patients, for somethin' made um all die mighty sudden—"
Here the applause made the speaker sit down in great confusion; and in spite of a logical restatement of the case by Senator Toombs, the doctor lost and Peter Bennett won.—Kentucky Law Journal.
