Judge Hoyt

“ I’d like to see dignified Judge Hoyt in that state commonly described as having lost his head!”
“Would you?” and a dangerous fire blazed in Hoyt’s eyes as he took a step nearer to her.
“No, no!” cried Avice, really alarmed, “not now. I mean some other time.”
“There’ll be times enough. You’ll have to spend the rest of your life getting used to seeing me headless. But Avice, I came to talk to you about that Hemingway note.”
“Yes, do. Will it clear Kane?”
“Why?” said the lawyer, a sudden anger coming into his eyes. “Do you love him?”
Avice looked at him. “Yes,” she said simply. ”

“ The coroner seemed unable to think of anything else to ask the witness. He looked at her thoughtfully, and she returned his glance coolly, but he questioned her no further just then.
The butler came next, and his testimony was garbled and incoherent. His emotion frequently overcame him, and he was unable to speak.
At last Judge Hoyt spoke rather sharply to him.
[53]
“Brace up, Stryker,” he said. “If you can do a good turn for a master who was always kind to you, don’t spoil your chance by acting like a baby. If your betters can control themselves, surely you can.” ”

“ But foreseeing an imminent scene, Judge Hoyt took Avice gently by the arm and drew her away.
“Don’t talk to her,” he whispered, “you can do the poor thing no good, and she may become intractable. Let her alone.”
Avice let herself be persuaded, and she followed the judge to the library. On the way, however, she was stopped by Stryker, who said the boy wanted to speak to her. ”

“ Black. “Of course, we want the best of everything, and it is the last honor we can pay to dear Mr. Trowbridge. You should be very thankful, Avice, that you have me here to assist and advise you. You are too young and inexperienced to attend to these matters. Isn’t that so, Judge Hoyt?” ”

“ Landon an’ you is enough. An’ to knock the spots out o’ Judge Hoyt! But it’s the game that gets me. The whole detective business! I’m goin’ to be a big one, like Mr. Stone. Gee! Miss Avice, did you catch on to how he ran Judge Hoyt down, the minute I gave him the steer? That’s the trick! Oh, he’s a hummer, F. Stone is! An’ he’s goin’ to let me work with him, sometimes!”
Fibsy spoke the last words in a hushed, rapt tone, as if scarcely daring to believe them himself.
“But I say,” he went on suddenly; “what about that guy as telephoned and called Mr. Trowbridge ‘Uncle’?” ”

“ Terence McGuire, potential detective, went straight to the office of Judge Hoyt.
It was about one o’clock, and he found the lawyer, about to go to his luncheon.
“Well, Terence,” the Judge said, in surprise, “I thought you were busy at your Philadelphia desk.”
It was on the tip of Fibsy’s tongue to say that Miss Avice sent for him, but he suddenly changed his mind and said, “Yes, sir, Judge, I was, but me Aunt is awful sick an’ I hadda come home. I’m all she’s got, an’ I can’t leave her w’en she’s sick.” ”

“ I do know Judge Hoyt is tryin’ sumpin’ fierce to clear Mr. Landon—has he done it yet?”
[290]
“No, Terence, but the trial is almost over, and I think the judge has something up his sleeve that he’s holding back till the last minute. I never was in such a baffling mystery case. Every clue leads nowhere, or gets so tangled with contradictory clues that it merely misleads. Now tell me your story.”
Fibsy told the tale of his imprisonment, and the manner of his escape. He told the street and number of the house, and he told of his discovery of a dirk cane in a cupboard. ”

“ Judge Hoyt, he’s payin’ my salary there himself.”
“How do you know this?”
“Billy, the other feller told me. He heard the talk over the telephone, an’ Judge Hoyt says if Mr. Stetson’d take me fer a coupla munts, he’d pay me wages himself. Only I must go at onct. An’ then the judge, he told me I must beat it, cause Mr. Stetson wanted me in a hurry.”
[221]
Avice thought deeply, then she said: “Fibsy, I’d be terribly interested in your story, if I could believe it. But you know yourself—”
“Yes’m, I know myself! That’s just it! And I know I ain’t lyin’ now! ”

“ It must go on. Kane must be exonerated, if possible, without Leslie’s help, and then she would be free to join her heart’s true love. And if Kane were freed by Judge Hoyt’s plans,—Avice shuddered to think of her promise. Well she knew that the judge would hold her to it, no matter how much Landon protested the contrary. Landon was determined, but his determination was a weak thing compared with the iron will of Judge Hoyt.
[269] CHAPTER XXIII
IN KITO’S CARE
The case of “The People vs. Kane Landon” was before the court and jury. ”

“ Nor do the transcripts alter the case in this respect. They only stand in place of the voluminous accounts. They do not change the form of action. The instruction of the judge, which required that the defendant should show an error in the quarterly accounts by the clearest evidence, is not defensible. It is a superlative, and rejects two inferior kinds of evidence, viz., clear evidence and clearer evidence. Now by what rule of law is a jury bound to reject clear testimony? Would the same rule apply to a note of hand in which error should be alleged? ”

“ How can you? Avice, you haven’t engaged Stone, have you?”
“Why, you told me not to,” said the girl, prevaricating purposely.
“That’s right,” and the judge took her words to mean denial, as she hoped he would. “There’s no use calling him in, for, dear, he is very clever, I am told, and if I do this thing,—this wrong,” the fine eyes clouded every time Hoyt referred to his projected plan, “Fleming Stone might discover it,—though Duane never will.”
“Then you’re afraid of Mr. Stone?”
“In that way, yes. If I do something secret to win our cause,—to win you, it must remain secret or be of no avail. ”

“ An’ the way his brushes an’ things is fixed, shows he ain’t got no wife. So this ain’t Mr. Autchincloss. Well, lemmesee. Writin’ table next. Not much doin’. Fixin’s all fer show. Spose he writes down in the liberry. Wisht I could git down there. Here’s a lot of his friends.”
[285]
Fibsy had spied a pack of snapshots and small photographs, and hastily ran them over. They were all unknown faces to him, except one which chanced to be the postcard of Judge Hoyt taken in Philadelphia station.
“Hello! The guy wot lives here is a frien’ o’ Judge Hoyt. No, not a friend, but a nennermy. ”

“ Berg, who could be in the least suspected. I’m thinking of such men as Judge Greer, who holds political views opposed to those of my uncle. And Professor Meredith, who is an enthusiastic naturalist, but who disagrees with my uncle in some of their classifications. As you see, these are not sufficient grounds for killing a man.”
“Of course, not,” said Hoyt. “I know those men, and their relations with Mr. Trowbridge were really friendly, though differing opinions frequently led to quarrels. ”

“ It is neither more nor less than an application for an order to reverse the solemn judgment of the district judge, in a matter clearly within the jurisdiction of the Court, and to substitute another judgment in its stead. Now a writ of mandamus is not a proper process to correct an erroneous judgment or decree rendered in an inferior Court. ”

“ One "great white throne" shall judge us, one and all;
One great white Hand shall hold the scales of fate,
Or clothed in light, or covered with a pall,
We tread the way through one eternal gate.
God grant the temples we so rudely spoil,
May not accuse us when we stand alone! ”

“ In 1829 my father, a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, died at Lebanon away from home, leaving his widow, Mary Hoyt of Norwalk, Conn. (sister to Charles and James Hoyt of Brooklyn) with a frame house in Lancaster, an income of $200 a year and eleven as hungry, rough, and uncouth children as ever existed on earth. But father had been kind, generous, manly, with a big heart; and when it ceased to beat friends turned up— Our Uncle Stoddard took Charles, the oldest; W. I. married the next, Elisabeth (still living) ; Amelia was soon married to a merchant in Mansfield, McCorab ”

“ Thank God! the time is coming when, as Judge,
The Man of Sorrows, ermined and supreme,
No longer as a packhorse or a drudge,
[124] Shall hold the scales and watch the balance beam!
How heavy did he make the widow's mite;
How do the tears of men bend down the scale;
How ponderous is a pennyweight of right;
How do the little things of life prevail!
The Spanish Conquest, sometime, will be tried
Against the heart Malinche [R] threw away,
And Aztec's tears be placed against your pride. ”

“ Allen says I have insulted women, he's a liar"
Then that bedizened judge turned on "New York" and said: "You look like a clean-cut, up-standing 285 man" (this last was the unkindest cut of all; it's a compliment to have some men call you a liar, but he needn't have used that word "up-standing"; Lord knows, "New York" didn't want to stand up) —"how do you explain your associating with such a person as this man Allen?"
And then "New York" shone some more. He told the captain that he had found Mr. Allen a most agreeable and congenial companion on this voyage. ”

“ But, as there appears to have been some diversity of construction in the different districts of the United States, of the laws on this subject, and as it is a matter of general concern throughout all the commercial districts, and applicable to the daily practice of the Courts, and the point has been fully argued, we think it right to say, that we are of opinion that the construction of the laws of the United States, maintained by the district judge in his opinion, is the correct one, to wit, that by the sixty-ninth section of the collection act of 1799, ch. ”

“ It is, therefore, clearly our opinion, that a state court has no legal authority to entertain the question of forfeiture in this case; and that it exclusively belonged to the cognizance of the proper court of the United States. Indeed no principle of general law seems better settled, than that the decision of a court of a peculiar and exclusive jurisdiction must be completely binding upon the judgment of every other court, in which the same subject matter comes incidentally in controversy. ”

“ The original suit was assumpsit to recover back from the defendant, who is the collector of the port and district of New York, a sum of money paid as duties upon certain imported goods, upon the ground that they were not liable to duty. Upon the trial it appeared, that on the 29th of March, 1837, an entry was made by the plaintiff, as consignee, at the customhouse of New York, of eight cases of cotton gloves, marked B, numbered from 38 to 45, as imported from Liverpool, England. The case, number 43, was designated on the invoice to be examined, and was passed as correct ”

“ It is certainly against the general theory of our institutions to create great discretionary powers by implication; and in the present instance we see nothing to justify it. The third plea is, therefore, for this additional reason, bad in its very substance, and the state court were right in giving judgment on the demurrer for the original plaintiff.
The judgment of the court for the correction of errors of the state of New-York, is affirmed with damages at the rate of 6 per cent. ”

“ If the defendant has proved, to the satisfaction of the jury, what amount of money came to his own custody or possession during his whole term of office, and has discharged himself of this amount, by proving its faithful and appropriate disbursements for account of the United States, this testimony may be taken into consideration by the jury, as tending to prove that he is charged with more money than he is properly accountable for. ”

“ If the government refuse to adopt his acts or waive the forfeiture, there is an end to his claim: he cannot proceed to enforce that which the government repudiates. In legal propriety, therefore, he cannot be deemed a stranger to the decree in rem; he is at all events a privy, and as such must be bound by a sentence which ascertains the seizure to be tortious. But if he were a mere stranger, he would still be bound by such sentence, because the decree of a court of competent jurisdiction in rem is, as to the points directly in judgment, conclusive upon the whole world. ”

“ Baron Price, (12 Vin. Abridgment, A B. 22. p. 95.) that an acquittal in the exchequer was conclusive evidence of the illegality of the seizure, and he refused in that case (which was trover for the goods seized) to let the parties in to contest the fact over again. This case was cited as undoubted law by Mr. Justice Blackstone, in his elaborate opinion, in Scott v. Shearman, (2 W. Bl. 977.;) and the doctrine was fully recognized by the court, and particularly by Lord Kenyon, in Cooke v. Sholl, (5 T. R. 255.) ”

“ Of course, these premises misconceive the scope of the right to an impartially selected jury assured by the Fourteenth Amendment. That right does not entitle one accused of crime to a jury tailored to the circumstances of the particular case, whether relating to the sex or other condition of the defendant, or to the nature of the charges to be tried. It requires only that the jury be indiscriminately drawn from among those eligible in the community for jury service, untrammelled by any arbitrary and systematic exclusions. ”

“ This action can only be sustained for so much as the plaintiff in error had actually received; and if he had failed to collect, the action should have been upon his bond. It is questionable whether an action of assumpsit can be maintained at all against a public officer who has given bonds for his official conduct. Trafton et al. v. United States, 3 Story, 646; Perkins v. Hart, 11 Wheat., 237; 8 Barn. & C., 324; 5 Mees. & W., 83; Toussaint v. Martinnant, 2 T. R., 105.
But how do the United States prove their action? Why, by Treasury transcripts made up in the Treasury Department. ”