Hawkins v. Stringer

Stringer sued Hawkins to recover damages resulting from a battery committed upon him by Hawkins. The testimony is that upon Sunday morning, Hawkins, then Sheriff of Smith County, had arrested a fleeing prisoner and was conducting him to jail, and in passing Stringer, who was standing on the sidewalk, struck the latter two or three times upon the head with a pistol. The jury was not impressed with the defence that Stringer had first attacked the officer, nor with any improbability that such officer would, without provocation, yield to some unaccountable urge to indulge a passion to test his…