Reporters for Northern papers were present with their Southern brethren of scratch-pad and pencil. The jury-box was a novelty to Northerners. In it sat a motley crew of negroes and whites. For portrait in part of the presiding judge, I refer to the case of McVeigh vs. Underwood, as reported in Twenty-third Grattan, decided in favour of McVeigh. When the Federal Army occupied Alexandria, John C. Underwood used his position as United States District Judge to acquire the homestead, fully furnished, of Dr. McVeigh, then in Richmond. He confiscated it to the United States, denied McVeigh a hearing, sold it, bought it in his wife's name for $2,850 when it was worth not less than $20,000, and had her deed it to himself. The first time thereafter that Dr. McVeigh met the able jurist face to face on a street in Richmond, the good doctor, one of the most amiable of men, before he knew what he was doing, slapped the able jurist over and went about his business; whereupon, the Honourable the United States Circuit Court picked himself up and went about his, which was sitting in judgment on cases in equity. In 1873, Dr. McVeigh's home was restored to him by law, the United States Supreme Court pronouncing Underwood's course "a blot upon our jurisprudence and civilisation." Underwood was in possession when he presided at the trial of Jefferson Davis. [Illustration: AN HISTORICAL PETIT JURY This is the Petit Jury impaneled to try President Jefferson Davis, being the first mixed Petit Jury ever impaneled in the United States. Judge Underwood, not Chief Justice Chase, presided.] His personal appearance has been described as "repellant; his head drooping; his hair long; his eyes shifty and unpleasing, and like a basilisk's; his clothes ill-fitting;" he "came into court, fawning, creeping, shuffling; ascended the bench in a manner awkward and ungainly; lifted his head like a turtle." "Hear ye! hear ye! Silence is commanded while the Honourable the United States Circuit Court is in session!" calls the crier on this May morning. General Burton, with soldierly simplicity, transfers the prisoner from the military to the civil power; Underwood embarrasses the officer and shames every lawyer present by a fatuous response abasing the bench before the bayonet. Erect, serene, undefiant, surrounded by mighty men of the Northern and Southern bar--O'Conor, Reed, Shea, Randolph Tucker, Ould--Jefferson Davis faces his judge, his own clear, fearless glance meeting squarely the "basilisk eye."