I only move for a
mitigation of punishment, and will state the circumstances upon which
I base my appeal to the clemency of the court. The exception in the
indictment, enables me to avoid the plea of necessity, which I should
have interposed, founded upon a huge forest meal, and the abundance as
well as impertinence of the musquitoes of these woods."
"I called the other day upon a venerable friend and client, who is
travelling the down hill of life quietly, and though with the present
summer he will have accomplished his three score years and ten, his
voice is as cheerful, and his heart as young, as they were decades
ago, when his manhood was in the glory and strength of its prime. I
found him sitting in his great arm-chair, smoking his accustomed pipe,
reading the evening papers. He seemed to be so calm, and happy, as the
smoke went wreathing up from his lips, that I could not for the moment
refrain from envying the calmness and repose which were visible all
around him. He has smoked his morning and evening pipe, in his quiet
way, for nearly half a century. When engaged in the active business of
life, struggling with its cares, and fighting its battles, he always
took half an hour in the morning, and as long at evening, to smoke his
pipe and read the news of the day. He scarcely ever, when at home,
under any pressure of circumstances omitted these two half hours of
repose, or as his excellent wife used to say, of 'fumigation.
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