The poet, journalist, and satirist Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914) published two highly critical poems directed at Judge James McMillan Shafter in his 1892 poetry collection Black Beetles in Amber.
A Growler
Judge Shafter, you're an aged man, I know,
And learned too, I doubt not, in the law;
And a head white with many a winter's snow
(I wish, however that your heart would thaw)
Claims reverence and honor; but the jaw
That's always wagging with a word malign,
Nagging and scolding every one in sight
As harshly as a jaybird in a pine,
And with as little sense of wrong and right
As animates that irritable creature,
Is not a very venerable feature.
You damn all witnesses, all jurors too
(And swear at the attorneys, I suppose,
But that's commendable) "till all is blue";
And what it's all about, the good Lord knows,
Not you; but all the hotter, fiercer glows
Your wrath for that—as dogs the louder howl
With only moonshine to incite their rage,
And bears with more ferocious menace growl,
Even when their food is flung into the cage.
Reform, your Honor, and forbear to curse us.
Lest all men, hearing you, cry: "Ecce ursus!"
The Shafter Shafted
Well, James McMillan Shafter, you're a Judge—
At least you were when last I knew of you;
And if the people since have made you budge
I did not notice it. I've much to do
Without endeavoring to follow, through
The miserable squabbles, dust and smudge,
The fate of even the veteran contenders
Who fight with flying colors and suspenders.
Being a Judge, 'tis natural and wrong
That you should villify the public press—
Save while you are a candidate. That song
Is easy quite to sing, and I confess
It wins applause from hearers who have less
Of spiritual graces than belong
To audiences of another kidney—
Men, for example, like Sir Philip Sidney.
Newspapers, so you say, don't always treat
The Judges with respect. That may be so
And still no harm done, for I swear I'll eat
My legs and in the long hereafter go,
Snake-like, upon my belly if you'll show
All Judges are respectable and sweet.
For some of them are rogues and the world's laughter's
Directed at some others, for they're Shafters.