"Can you inform the jury what are the respective developments of the prisoner's organs of alimentiveness, acquisitiveness, and conscientiousness?"
Here the opposite counsel rose and objected to the question; saying that the introduction of such testimony was wholly unwarranted by any of the established rules of evidence.
After an argument of some length, the court decided that the testimony in relation to the phrenological developments of Sam was inadmissible. Thereupon Professor Boneskull retired from the stand, carrying both heads with him as he went.
"Mr. Pate, have you any further testimony to offer?" inquired the court.
"None whatever," was the mournful response.
"Then, gentlemen, go before the jury," said the judge.
The remarks of the Commonwealth's attorney, which were very brief, are not remembered; but a portion of Mr. Pate's great argument has been retained in the memory of men in a fine state of preservation. He spoke as follows:
"May it please your Honor, and gentlemen of the jury,--No advocate ever rose to address a Christian jury under so many and such tremendous disadvantages as now encompass me and my unfortunate but innocent and virtuous client. The prisoner is unjustly and falsely accused of stealing the Widow Wild's hog; and that ruthless woman is here to-day with a heart of flint in her bosom, and with all the influence which the wealth she has grasped and retained with the harpy hand of avarice enables her to exert,--she is here to-day not to prosecute, but to persecute, to calumniate, to crush, and to ruin this poor, unfriended, innocent, and unoffending African.
"There is another disadvantage under which my client labors. In the language of a great Roman poet, _hic est niger_, and while men of the Caucasian race are tried by their peers, that sacred right is withheld from Sam, simply because he is an African, although it is possible, and even probable, that he has royal blood in his veins as one of the descendants of the heroic kings of Timbuctoo. Has not Sam the right to be tried by his peers? and who in that jury-box can be considered as the peer of Sam?
"Gentlemen of the jury, I am aware of the tremendous peril which now environs my client; and I know that my zeal in behalf of this unhappy criminal has made me many enemies; but, in the eloquent language of that venerable patriot and signer of our glorious Declaration of Independence, old John Adams, 'Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish,' I give my heart and my voice in defense of Sam.