One of the toughest characters in the history of the Charlotte police court threw those present at the session of that body into an uproar Monday morning. He was Dick Crawford, a long, lean, peculiar looking negro who could easily use his lips for a straw in a glass of lemonade. Larceny was the charge against him.
The court scarcely noticed him when he sauntered up before Judge Jones. The entire room was quiet.
“Solemnly swear the evidence given in the case against Dick Crawford to be the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God,” murmured the Judge, when suddenly—bang!! The old tattered Bible, which was the most antique object in the room, received the surprise of its life. With a hasty kiss even too harsh for a mother-in-law, dick slammed the Gospel of Truth down upon the table with such force that the court room snapped to attention as if Napoleon Bonaparte himself had suddenly entered. Judge Jones was amazed. He gazed at the negro a moment and said:
“Looks like you’re mad about it, eh?”
There wasn’t any question abut that. The fabled frog that swelled up the size of a cow had no claims whatever on the record. The negro’s lips were extended.
When he got on the witness stand, he told more lies in five minutes than Ananias told in 67 years.
“Ever been up before?” asked Solicitor Guthrie.
“I ain’t,” said the negro.
But the solicitor knew his record and first made him confess that he had broken into a box car and stole a lot of snuff. He received 12 months for that.
Next he made him confess that he had stolen some dry goods. He had received six months for that.
Next he made him confess that he was implicated n a butter and eggs theft from a woman’s back porch.
“Dat was Sam Jenkins don dat,” declared the negro.
“Well, they got you for it, didn’t they?” asked the solicitor.
“But I got out o’ dat. Dey let me loose.”
“When did they let you loose?”
“In six months,” confessed the negro.
By the time he came down off the stand he had confessed that he had stolen most everything, from a bottle of milk to the caboose on a freight train. He was so mad that he would have scared the Wild Man of Borneo to death. As he came down off the stand, Judge Jones said:
“Six months!”
The negro stopped for a second in his tracks. He asked the judge again what he had given him. Then with a look of bewilderment he walked square up in front of the judge’s stand and exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be darn.”
And the judge had to knock his gavel 26 times to restore order in the court room.
From The Charlotte News, June 27, 1921
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