The Judge next regrets that I am a woman, for the modicum of gentlemanly honor and dignity which he has left, prevents him from exercising the full bent of his inclinations, and inflicting upon me the full penalty of the violated law. It is a pity he remembered that I was of the weaker sex, and I feel that I have no thanks to offer him for his proposed lenity, for, under the circumstances of the case, an imprisonment for six months would have been no severer than the one for thirty days. He admits that the jury had the power to regulate the amount of the fine, but claims that it was his prerogative to name the term of my imprisonment. The jury, it will be seen, made the fine merely nominal, thus attesting in the most emphatic manner their appreciation of the merits of the case. There was not a man on that jury who was not fully as capable of judging of right and wrong, as was he who occupied the bench. And yet he, this one man, had the hardihood to set his judgment over theirs, and virtually insult the whole twelve, by inflicting a punishment so severe that it was no charity to me not to have exercised his power to the fullest extent. He admits that I was of fair and respectable standing in the community, and knew from the evidence, as well as from his own knowledge, that I had abundant precedents for what I had done, and that, knowing the law, I had no intention of again violating it; also, that the feeling of the entire community was in my favor, and yet he wantonly, needlessly, and inhumanly exercised the authority with which he was clothed, in order to make an example of me, when I, by my forbearance, had refused to place scores of respectable ladies and gentlemen of Norfolk, and some of them members of his own family, in the unpleasant position which I then occupied. He even twitted me because I had not deemed it proper to employ counsel to defend me, intimating that my case would have been presented in a more favorable light to the Court and jury thereby. This shows the very blackness of his malice, for the jury did all they could, and I do not entertain the least feeling of anger towards one of them. They could not do otherwise than find me guilty of a violation of the law, as it stood, but they did all in their power to render its penalty nominal, by imposing upon me the lowest fine it recognized. It was the Judge himself who insulted the jury by virtually telling them their judgment was erroneous, and then he turns to me and says my case might have been more favorably presented if I had employed counsel!