A Solomon Come To Judgment

: LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY
: Good Stories For Great Holidays

BY CHARLES W. MOORES



Lincoln's practical sense and his understanding of human nature enabled

him to save the life of the son of his old Clary's Grove friend, Jack

Armstrong, who was on trial for murder. Lincoln, learning of it, went

to the old mother who had been kind to him in the days of his boyhood

poverty, and promised her that he would get her boy free.



The witnesses were sure that Arms rong was guilty, and one of them

declared that he had seen the fatal blow struck. It was late at night,

he said, and the light of the full moon had made it possible for him to

see the crime committed. Lincoln, on cross-examination, asked him only

questions enough to make the jury see that it was the full moon that

made it possible for the witness to see what occurred; got him to say

two or three times that he was sure of it, and seemed to give up any

further effort to save the boy.



But when the evidence was finished, and Lincoln's time came to make his

argument, he called for an almanac, which the clerk of the court had

ready for him, and handed it to the jury. They saw at once that on the

night of the murder there was no moon at all. They were satisfied that

the witness had told what was not true. Lincoln's case was won.