Sacramento Daily Union, 21 March 1851
An itinerant player, possessed of more wit than money, was a few days ago driven by the harp master, hunger, to commit the high crime of poaching, in the neighborhood of Birmingham (England,) and being unluckily detected in the act, was carried forthwith before a bench of magistrates, when the offense was fully proved. The knight of the buskin, however, being called upon for his offense, astonished the learned justices by adapting “Brutus’s speech to the Romans on the death of Caesar” to his case, in the following manner:
“Britons, hungry men, and epicures!; hear me for my cause, and be silent ; that you may hear; believe me for mine honor, and have respect for my honor that you may believe; censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of this hare, to him I say that a players love for hare is no less than his. If then that friend, demand why a player rose against a hare, this is my answer: not that I loved hare less, but that I loved eating more. Had you rather this hare were living and I had died starving, than that this hare were dead, that I might live a jolly fellow? As this hare was pretty, I weep for him: as he was nimble, I rejoice at it; as he was plump, I honor him; but as he was eatable, I slew him.”
Here the gravity of the Court was obliged to give.way; prosecutors, spectators, and all burst into laughter at the ready wit displayed by the “poor actor.” The information was withdrawn, and the knight of the sock and buskin left the court, with pockets much heavier than when he entered it, with the intention of appearing on the stage the same evening in an entirely new character.