Caleb Krause's Defense

The adjourned action against the body of Caleb Krause, arrested some time ago, charged with the nocturnal abstraction of potatoes not grown by hirnself, carne to a climax, Wednesday, before Justice Pond. The court room was packed like the "black hole of Calcutta," with witnesses and a large and curious throng, anxious to hear Caleb's defense, as his soul scorned the emjloyment of any of the groveling :raternity whose business it is to ofer a vicarious defence for the price of a fee. Caleb had determined to defend himself and let lawyers vvhistle for a cliënt He demanded a jury and six supposedly "good men and true" were grabbed by an officer and sat upon Mr. Krause, after the justice had stuffed the oath down their throats. It was shown by the prosecution that Caleb was present in the potato field at an unseasonable hour; that he was chased therefrom by those who lay in wait and that the evidences of petit larceny were such as to leave no doubt that a burden of guilt and a bushei of potatoes rested on his shoulders, at the beginning of the pursuit, while at its close the guilt and a tired feeling were all that remained. When the prosecution had ended, Caleb arose and addressed the court and jury as "My brothers." He proved a veritable Patrick Henry in oratory; a cyclone of eloquence; a flambeau of rhetoric and a resistless raging torrent of impassioned utterance. It all begun, he said about a dog. A dog lay at the roots of the whole doggoned business. There had been a dog quarrel and to get even he resolved to pose as a thief. Filled with this overmastering idea, he dug a lot of his own potatoes and took them to his neighbor's lot, to let himself be seen there as a potatothief. He was seen and on being chased ran and was caught, but never would have been, in the world had his shoes been tied up. They were not and this lost him the race. The jury found Mr. Krause guilty, whereupon he denounced them as "Dutch blockheads," and was sentenced by Justice Pond to 10 days, or in lieu thereof a fine, which he paid.