Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1876-09-28
s'PosTN..

81
While Judge Copley was sitting Ia
his Office the other day, leoking over
some Law papers, the door opened aud .
man hobbled in upon crutches. Pro-
ceeding to chair, and making cush-
ION Of some newspapers, he sat down
very gingerly, placed q bandaged leg
upon another chair and said:
= Judge. my name 10 Briggs. l called
in, Judge, to get your opinion about
little point of law. - 2
|" Mr.. Jadge, s'posin' Won lived up
the pike here half mile. next door 4
. nan named Johnson And s'posins
topnn - q eUt into an ~.
gument about the human intellect, and
you was to say to johnson that splen-
did illustration Of the superiority Of the
human intellect was to be found in the
power Of the human eye to restrain the
ferocity Of a wild animal. And s'posin'
johnson was TO remark that that was all
bosh, because nobody could hold wild
animal with the human eye; and You
should declare that you could hold the
savagest beast that was ever born if you
could once fix your gaze on him.
4" Well, then, s'posin' Johnson was
to say he'd bet you hundred dollars
he could bring tame animal that you
couldn't hold with your eye, and you
was to take him up on It, and Johnson was
to ask you to come down to his place TO
settle the bet. You'd go, we'll say, and
Johnson'd wander around to the back
of the house and pretty soon come front
again with dog bigger'n any four de-
cent dogs ought to be. And then,
s'sposin' Johnson'd let 60 of that dog
and sick him on you, and he'd come at
you like q sixteen inch shell out of
howitzer, and you'd get skeery about it,
and try to hold the dog with your eye
and couldn't. And s'posin' you'd sud
denly conclude that maybe your kind OF
an eye wasn't calculated to hold that
kind of dog, and you'd conclude to
break for plum tree, in order to have
chance TO collect your thoughts, and
try to reflect what sort Of an eve would
be best calculated to mollify that sort Of
a dog.
You ketch my idea, Of course :
Very well, then; s'posin yon'd take
your eve off that dog; Johnson, mind
you, all the time sicking hlm on and
laughing: and you'd turn and leg it for
the tree, and begin to swarm up as fast
as you could. Well, sir, s'posin' Just
as you got three feet from the ground,
Johnson's dog would grab you by the
leg and hold on like wise. shaking you
until you nearly lost your hold. And
s'posin' Johnson was stand there and
holler:
Fix your eve on him, Briggs
Why don't you manifest the power of
the human intellect"
And so on-gassing away with
ironical remarks like those: and s'posin'
he kept that dog on that leg until he
made you swear to pay the bet, and
then, at last, had to pry the dog off with
hot poker, bringing away at the same
time halt pound of your meat in the
dogs mouth, so that you had to be car
ried home on a stretcher, and TO hire
four doctors to keep you from dying
with lockjaw.
S'posin' this, what | want to know
is, couldn't you sue Johnson for dama-
ges, and make him pay heavily for what
that dog did, That is what / want to
get at"
The judge thought for a minute and
then said:
Well. Mr.. Briggs, I don't think
could. If / agreed to let Johnson set
the dog at me, should be party to the
transaction, and | could not recover"
Do you mean to say that the law
won't make that internal scoundrel,
Johnson, suffer for letting his dog eat
me up:'
II think not, il you state the case
properly"
+ "It won't hey:' exclaimed Mr..
Briggs, Historically. Oh, very well
very well. It's beautiful govern
ment, this is! Beautiful, amt il,
s'pose if that dog had chewed me all
up. and spit me out, it'd'vc been all the
same to this constitutional republic. I'll
kill Johnson, poison his dog and immi-
CRATE to some country where the rights
of citizens are protected. Ii don't you
may bust me open.
Then Mr.. Briggs got on his crutches
and hobbled out.
He is still citizen and will vote at
the next election.-.Har .Adeier.