REMITTING A FINE
About every courthouse in the "Blue Grass" still linger traditions of the late Thomas F. Marshall. For him Nature did well her part. He was a genius if one ever walked this earth. Tall, erect, handsome, of commanding presence, and with intellectual endowment such as is rarely vouchsafed to man, no place seemed beyond his reach. Having in addition the prestige of family, that counted for much, and being the possessor of inherited wealth, it indeed seemed that to one man "fortune had come with both of her hands full." The successor of Clay and Crittenden as Representative for the Ashland District, a peerless orator upon the hustings, at the bar, and in the Great Hall, his life went out in sorrow and disappointment.
"Of all sad words of tongue or pen
The saddest are these, 'It might have been!'"
His eulogy upon the gifted and lamented Menifee, the tribute of genius to genius, belongs to the realm of the loftiest eloquence, and seldom have words of deeper pathos been written than his own obituary —"Poor Tom's a-cold"—by George D. Prentice.
As to why that which seemed so full of promise "turned to ashes upon the lips," the following will explain. Meeting his kinsman, the Rev. Dr. Breckenridge, he said: "Bob, when you and I graduated, you took to the pulpit and I to the bottle, and I have stuck to my text a good deal closer than you have to yours!"
Not inaptly has hell been described as "disqualification in the face of opportunity."
Bearing in mind Marshall's invariable habit of not paying his debts, the point of the closing remark of the judge in the incident to be related will appear. Marshall was engaged in the defence of a man charged with murder in a county some distance from his own home. Failing repeatedly in his attempt to introduce certain testimony excluded by the Court, he at length exclaimed:
"It was upon just such rulings as that that Jesus Christ was convicted."
"Mr. Clerk, enter up a fine of ten dollars against Mr. Marshall for contempt of court," was the prompt response of the judge.
"Well," said Marshall, "this is the first time in a Christian country I have ever heard of a man being fined for abusing Pontius Pilate!"