"Mr. Green," said the Judge in a familiar tone, "the jury in your case have found you guilty. I want you to understand, Mr. Green, and all your friends down on Indian Creek to know, that it is not I who condemns you, but the jury and the law. The law allows you time for preparation, Mr. Green; and so the court wants to know what time it would suit you to be hung?" The prisoner replying that he was ready to suffer at whatever time the court might appoint, the Judge said; "Mr. Green, you must know that it is a very serious matter to be hung. It can't happen to a man more than once in his life, and you had better take all the time you can get; the court will give you till this day four weeks. Mr. Clerk, look at the almanac and see if this day four weeks comes on Sunday." The Clerk after examination reported that that day four weeks came on Friday. The Judge then said: "Mr. Green, the court gives you till this day four weeks, and then you are to be hanged." Whereupon the prosecuting officer, the Hon. James Turney, an able and dignified lawyer, said: "May it please the court, on solemn occasion like the present, when the life of a human being is to be sentenced away for crime by an earthly tribunal, it is usual and proper for courts to pronounce a formal sentence, in which the leading features of the crime shall be brought to the recollection of the prisoner, a sense of his guilt impressed upon his conscience, and in which the prisoner should be duly exhorted to repentance and warned against the judgment in a world to come." To which the Judge replied: "Oh, Mr. Turney, Mr. Green understands the whole matter as well as if I had preached to him a month. He knows he has got to be hung this day four weeks. You understand it that way, Mr. Green, don't you?" "Yes," said the prisoner, upon which the Judge again expressing the hope that he and all his friends down on Indian Creek would understand that it was the act of the jury and of the law, _and not of the Judge,_ ordered the prisoner to be remanded to jail, and the court adjourned for the term. For some reason, by no means satisfactorily explained, Judge Reynolds retired from the bench at the end of his four years' term. In "Breese," the first volume of Illinois reports, is an opinion by Judge Reynolds which has been the subject of amusing comment by three generations of lawyers. After giving sundry reasons why there was error in the judgment below, the learned Judge concludes: "Therefore, the judgment _ought to be_ reversed; but inasmuch as the court is equally divided in opinion, it is therefore _affirmed."_