he people were simple and primitive. The
costume of the men was a raccoon-skin cap, linsey hunting-shirt,
buck-skin leggings and moccasons, with a butcher-knife in the belt.
The women wore cotton or woollen frocks, striped with blue dye and
Turkey-red, and spun, woven, and made with their own hands; they went
barefooted and bareheaded, except on Sundays, when they covered the head
with a cotton handkerchief. It is told of a certain John Grammar, for
many years a representative from Union County, and a man of some note
in the State councils, though he could neither read nor write, that in
1816, when he was first elected, lacking the necessary apparel, he and
his sons gathered a large quantity of hazel-nuts, which they took to
the nearest town and sold for enough blue strouding to make a suit of
clothes. The pattern proved to be scanty, and the women of the household
could only get out a very bob-tailed coat and leggings. With these Mr.
Grammar started for Kaskaskia, the seat of government, and these he
continued to wear till the passage of an appropriation bill enabled him
to buy a civilized pair of breeches.

The distinctions in manners and dress between the higher and lower
classes were more marked than at present; for while John Grammar wore
blue strouding, we are told that Governor Edwards dressed in fine
broadcloth, white-topped boots, and a gold-laced cloak, and rode about
the country in a fine carriage, driven by a negro.

In those days justice was administered without much parade or ceremony.
The judges held their courts mostly in log houses or in the bar-rooms of
taverns, fitted up with a temporary bench for the judge, and chairs for
the lawyers and jurors. At the first Circuit Court in Washington County,
held by Judge John Reynolds, the sheriff, on opening the court, went out
into the yard, and said to the people, "Boys, come in; our John is going
to hold court." The judges were unwilling to decide questions of law,
preferring to submit everything to the jury, and seldom gave them
instructions, if they could avoid it. A certain judge, being ambitious
to show his learning, gave very pointed directions to the jury, but
they could not agree on a verdict. The judge asked the cause of their
difference, when the foreman answered with great simplicity,--"Why,
Judge, this 'ere's the difficulty: the jury wants to know whether that
'ar what you told us, when we went out, was r'aly the law, or whether it
was on'y jist yo