A proposition was afterwards humorously proposed, to add another story to the new State House, so that fugacious members would have to go down the water spouts if they ran!
Tried for Scaring the Girls.
Thirty years ago, when Springfield was blooming into the dignity of its Capitalive position, the American House was its great hotel, (and it isn't its smallest yet,) and the resort of those who loved to spend a few hours in the society of the bon vivants who then assembled—Lincoln, Douglas, Shields, Ferguson, Herndon, (then a young man, but since the law partner of Uncle Abe,) and many others "not unknown to fame," could almost always be found here during the evening.
One evening as they were sitting in free converse in the bar-room, one of the chamber maids came in and informed the landlord that a man was under her bed.
It seems while stooping down to untie her gaiters, she saw a man under the bed. With rare presence of mind, she excused herself to her fellow servant as having forgotten some duty, and reported her discovery to the landlord. Boniface at once called for volunteers to secure the interloper. So eager were they for fun, that all volunteered. They surprised and captured the man, and brought him down to the bar-room; but what to do with him? was the next question. Springfield then had no vagabonds who made fees out of misfortunes—i.e. policemen—and it was determined to treat him with the prompt justice peculiar to that era. A court was therefore got together at once, all expectant of fun but the unfortunate culprit.
Judge Thomas Brown was decided upon to act as Judge; Melborn, the talented, but eccentric State Attorney, was detailed to prosecute; and Lincoln and Douglas to defend the prisoner. Dr. Wallace acted as Sheriff, and upon the jury were Dr. Merriman, * Gen. Shields, John Calhoun (of Lecompton memory,) Uri Manly, and many other well known personages.
Lawborn, though a regularly-educated and talented lawyer, took occasion not only to be as "funny as he could," but to imitate the prevailing style of oratory too common in Illinois—a style in which the Hard-shell-Baptist devil mingled with the rough dialect of the back-woodsman.
"May it please your Honor, and you, gentlemen of the Jury: The Legislature of Illinois, though it has legislated upon every subject it could think of, has omitted to pass any act against a man being born as ugly as he pleases. If such an idea ever occurred to my friend Lincoln here, when in the Legislature, I know he would at once dismiss it, not only as too personal, but as repugnant to his honest heart. As for myself, I like ugly men. An ugly man stands up on his own merits. Nature has done nothing for him, and he feels that he must labor to supply the deficit by amiability and good conduct generally. There is not an ugly man in this room but has felt this. A pretty man, on the contrary, trusts his face to supply head, heart and everything. He is an anomaly in nature, as though the productions had been at fault as to sex, and sought to correct it when too late. They are girl's first loves, and doting husband's jealous bane. I confess I don't like pretty men half so well as I do pretty women.