BETTER THAN HE EXPECTED.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIX, Issue 1083, 8 December 1910, Page 23

BETTER THAN HE EXPECTED.

Not long ago a young lawyer of Baltimore undertook the defence of an old negro who had been arrested for “helpin’ hisself without askin’,” and who in slavery days had once been owned by the young man’s father. It was his first case, and his defence was not brilliant, either in construction or in delivery. The old darky received no mercy, his guilt being clearly proved. “T’ank you, sah,” the prisoner addressed the judge, cheerfully, after the sentence had been pronounced “ ’Tain’t anywhar near’s bad as I s’pected, sah. I t’ought sure, ’tween my character and pore Marse Frank's speech, dey’d hang me for sartain.”