Atlanta
Constitution
June 25, 1903
He Was Hungry
Talking about
courts. Walter Taylor tells a story on that grand old man and
jurist, Judge Richard H. Clarke, so long upon our city court bench.
That cock-eyed
melungeon, Levi Morrison, who was so long a perennial pest to the
police, was arraigned before Judge Clarke for the larceny of a box of
soap.
When Levi
stood up and looked at the judge he resembled a frost-browned chestnut
burr more than anything mortal. The judge said:
"Levi, you are
charged with the larceny of a box of soap. Are you guilty or not
guilty?"
"I'se guilty,
jedge!" said the culprit as he mournfully cocked his eye at the bench."
"Well, Levi,"
asked Judge Clarke in those compassionate tones so characteristic of
him, "why did you steal that soap?"
Levi looked up
with an expression of intense pleading, burst into tears and fairly
bawled out:
"Jedge, I was
hungry!"
While the
crowd roared Judge Clarke bent down behind the bench to tie his
shoestrings, I suppose, and when he looked up his face was serene
agains and he sentenced Levi to thirty days of three square meals per
diem in the county camp. S.W. S