George Speed, Charlotte negro, is the eighth wonder of the world. He can beat his wife every day in the week and get away with it. The law won’t touch him.
And opportunity never knocked twice at his door. But he has knocked his wife a thousand times. His fistic encounters with his unfortunate spouse rival the most historical pugilistic battles of all times. Ofr course, he goes to the court. But what of it? The verdict each time is:
“Guilty!”
“Judgment suspended.”
The circumstances are sensational. George was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. In the vernacular of the henpecks, he sist on the other end of the rainbow. In the eyes of the common herd, however, he is but a favorite of fate. In the first place, George has three downs and the whole 10 yards to go in the game with the Grim Reaper. He has heart trouble, dropsy, rheumatism, gout, kidney trouble, stomach trouble, catarrh, bronchitis, enlarged tonsils, appendicitis and high blood pressure. Therefore, one day in jail would give him a free ticket on the Sty ferryboat, he says.
In the second place, what he has physically he lacks financially. A nickel looks like a railroad turntable to him. If he had $1.25 he would try to start a factory of some kind. Hence, the domestice treasury is kept out of the receive4r by the noble efforts of his spouse. Therefore, a sentence imposing a fine would mean that the already mistreated weaker half would have to dish out the cash.
George appreciates the situation. According to J.C. Mayson, chief clerk of the police department, the gasoline used by the local department in bringing the African Bluebeard to court during the last year has increased the stock of the Standard Oil Company 13 per cent.
His appearance in the police court Saturday morning was looked upon merely as part of the daily routine. This time George had started the trouble by asking his wife to sweep the porch. When she did not jump to attention at the sound of his voice, he uppercutted her clear through the front door. Her flying form was followed by the broom, which George maliciously hurled after her.
Then came the greatest display of belligerency and excitement since the day Pharoah’s army got drowned. HIs wife’s brother, also afflicted with heart trouble, dropsy, rheumatism, gout, kidney trouble, stomach trouble, catarrh and countless other ailments, opened hostilities against his sister’s persecutor. In the hall they fought. Crutches, bandages, court plaster, and braces flew like feather in a cook fight. The crossing of the Alps by Hannibal was a poor show of endurance compared with the prolonged exertion of the incensed invalids. So thoroughly did they mix it up, that when they appeared in court they looked like a drug store display at a county fair.
Of course, nobody could be prosecuted. Neither one had a cent, and neither one could be sent to die in jail. There they sat, unperturbed and unconcerned, as Judge Laurence Jones scratched his head and sighed:
“Call the next case!”
From The Charlotte News, Aug. 6, 1921
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