HE WAS A TRIFLE OFF.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 80, 24 July 1876, Page 2

HE WAS A TRIFLE OFF.

. ."Yes —yes, sir!" answered the prisoner. '' Please repeat the Ten Commandments, Mr. Fraser."—"l—l," stammered the prisoner."Go ahead, Mr. Fraser." The prisoner looked around in a helpless, anxious manner, and finally commenced, " Now I lay me down to sleep."—" I suppose they have some commandments of their own there," replied the Court, as he looked over the prisoner's head : "some which are patented for special use in that state?"—" Yes, sir."—" You don't deny being drunk yesterday, do you ?"—" I was a trifle off, your honor; but it's the first time for seven years."—"One day, four or five years ago, when I was going up the Hudson," said the Court, in a voice trembling with emotion, "a young man greatly resembling you in look, sat down beside me and asked me if I was prepared to die, and if I was trying to be good, and by-and-bye he took a string, twisted it around into loops, and I lost 20dol. betting on his game."—"lt wasn't me, your honor."—"lt might have been, but you look like him—same nose, same squint eyes, same two-dollar diamond in his shirt front. This resemblance, together with your being drunk, induces me to fine you lOdol."—"It's hard, sir," sighed the prisoner, as he felt for his greenbacks. "And let me give you a brotherly warning," continued the Court, " get an engagement as a comic lecturer and leave New York and travel for your health. The police won't believe that you are a Christian and an upright man, and if you stay around here they will make your young life dark ;\vifch hints, and slurs, and flings at your honesty-of .purpose. "' —" New York Times." .