Immigrants in time changed the character of the population as well as its dress, and for a while there seems to have been something of a jumble of elements, new laws conflicting with old habits, hungry politicians preying upon a simple people, who only desired to be let alone, and who, when they discovered some gross imposition, were philosophical enough to call it, jokingly, being “greased and swallowed.”  This anarchical condition resulted, as usual, in habits of personal violence; and, at one time, an adverse vote was considered matter for stabbing or gouging, and juries often dismissed indictments, fearing private vengeance in case of a discharge of their duty.  They made a wide distinction, in murder trials, between him who committed the crime in a passion and those who did the thing quietly; so that you had only to walk up to the person who had offended you, and shoot him in the open street, to feel tolerably sure of impunity.  In short, there seems to have prevailed, at that time, north of Mason and Dixon’s line, very much the same state of things that still prevails south of it; but there was other leaven at work, and the good sense of the people gradually got the better of this short-sighted folly of violence.

It is reported as fact, by all writers on the earlier history of this State, that the holding of courts was conducted very much in the style reported of the back counties of Georgia and Alabama in our day.  The sheriff would go out into the court-yard and say to the people, “Come in, boys,—­the court is going to begin,”—­or sometimes, “Our John is going to open court now,”—­the judge being just one of the “boys.”

Judges did not like to take upon themselves the onus of deciding cases, but shared it with the jury as far as possible.  One story, well authenticated, runs thus:  A certain judge, having to pass sentence of death upon one of his neighbors, did it in the following form:  “Mr. Green, the jury in their verdict say you are guilty of murder, and the law in that case says you are to be hung.  Now I want you and all your friends down on Indian Creek to know that it is not me that condemns you, but the jury and the law.  What time would you like to be hung, Sir?” The poor man replied, that it made no difference to him; he would rather the court should appoint a time.  “Well, then, Mr. Green,” says the judge, “the court will allow you four weeks’ time to prepare for death and settle up your business.”  It was here suggested by the Attorney-General that it was usual in such cases for the court to recapitulate the essential parts of the evidence, to set forth the nature and enormity of the crime, and solemnly to exhort the prisoner to repent and fit himself for the awful doom awaiting him.  “Oh!” said the judge, “Mr. Green understands all that as well as if I had preached to him a month.  Don’t you, Mr. Green?  You understand you’re to be hung this day four weeks?” “Yes, Sir,” replied Mr. Green, and so the matter ended.