Michiganensian. [1900]

Bill KellU's "Spiel" to the Jury.
l ii ER Honor and gintlemen of the jur-r-r- y.
K\l> Oi come before yez today a humble attor-r r-ny
NI frish from the Ould Dart. Oi am not on to the quips; [^PJ X and tur-r-rns of a Yankee lawyer's brain.
So Oi ask the pardon of your Highness if Oi same
to digress from me subject.
But as Oi said Oi come before yez because Oi come before yez. Oi
am before yez because yez are here and Oi am here, and as we are both
here we are all here, and as we are all here and as Oi am standing before
yez, Oi am before yez.
But Oi come to ask if yez twelve honor-r-r-able and thrue gintlemin, of the greatest University of the greatest countr-r-r-y of wor-r-r-ld
kin stand boi and see sich rank injustice done.
Yez see before yez my most rispicted and lowly patron. Can yez
imagine awnything graner or more easily wor-r-r-kud than my aforsaid
patron, a farmer living chu miles from Upsilanti, by name Bill Day?
Can yez stand boi and see this same specimen of humanity, without
a cint in his pocket, without a crust in the house to feed his star-r-r-ving
woife and twelve childer with, and not a drop of the red liquor in the
dimijohn?
Oi say kin yez stand for it, all on account of two blackguardly
skinners and grane goods min taking all his wheat and niver paying a
cint, 'cause the're elevator bur-r-rnt down. Whoi did he put it in an elevator? 'Cause so whin there wuz a foire they could kape on elevating it
until it was out of reach of the all devouring elements. But did they do
this? Of cour-r-r-se not.
Didn't they stand around and watch it burn, and when the poor
mon asked for his money they give him the laugh. Oi ask yez agin, "Kin
yez stand for it?"
Yes ask if he had or would pay for that same storage of his grain.
Of cour-r-r-se he would. He is an honest mon even if he does live near
Upsilanti.