a poor compliment to dwell on it for a minute, therefore, I shall proceed to explain it to you as minutely as possible." Sometimes it happens that the most bril liant piece of "spread-eagle" oratory is answered in the most ridiculous manner. A very good instance is that of the time when the celebrated legal orator, Elisha Williams, of northern New York, was com pletely overshadowed. Williams was a most graceful speaker; his voice, particularly in its pathetic tones, was melody itself. His power over a jury was equal to that of the great Choate. He swayed as with a wand of an enchanter, and it was very seldom that he failed to secure a verdict for his client. On one occasion he failed, and in such a manner that a crowded court and grave judges on the bench were convulsed with laughter at the burlesque of the result. The case was one of murder, the scene a small county town in the northern part of the State. Mr. Williams had been retained for the defence, for the accused had almost unlimited money at his command. Never had orator been more eloquent, never did jury look more convinced and a settled assurance of acquittal was visible on each face as the orator closed a brilliant speech with this exceedingly touching peroration : "Gentleman of the jury," said he, "if you can find this unhappy prisoner at the bar guilty of the crime with which he is charged after the adverse and irrefragable arguments
which I have laid before you, pronounce your fatal verdict; send him to lie in chains on the dungeon floor, waiting the death which he is to receive at your hands; then go to the bosom of your families, go lay your heads on your pillows—and sleep if you can." The effect was electrical, every one was sure of a verdict of acquittal, but by and by, the district attorney's assistant, rose to make the final speech. He drawled and spoke in the vernacular, he was chewing as he spoke, presenting a marked contrast to the great lawyer who had just sat down. Gentlemen of the jury, I should despair, after the weeping speech which has been made to you by Mr. Williams, of saying any thing to do away with its eloquence," he said. "I never heerd Mr. Williams speak that piece of his'n better than when he spoke it now. Once I heerd him speak it in a case of stealin'; then he spoke it agen in a case of rape; and then the last time I heerd him speak it before jest now, was when them niggers was tried—and convicted, too, over beyond Kingston. But I never heerd him speak it so elegant and affectin' as when he spoke it jest now." He paused, looked at the jury, saw the effect he had made and then closed with a single sentence: "If you can't see, gentlemen of the jury, that this speech don't answer all cases, then there's no use in saying anything more." And the jury thought so too, for the verdict was against the client of the great legal orator.
