, 1876-09-22
S'pOsin'.
BY MAX ADELER.

While Judge Copley was sitting in
some law papers, the door opened and
man hobbled in upon crutches. Pro
ceeding to chair and making a cushion
of some newspapers, he sat down very
gingerly, placed a bandaged leg upon
another chair, and said
Judge, my name is Briggs, and I
called in, Judge, to get your opinion
about little point of law. Mr.. Judge,
s'posin' you lived up the pike here a
half mile, next door to man named
johnson. And s'posin' you and John
son was to get into an argument about
the human intellect, and you was to say
to johnson that a splendid illustration
of the superiority of the human intel
lect was to be found in the power of the
human eye to restrain the ferocity of
wild animal. And s'posin' that John
son was to remark that all that was
bosh, because nobody could hold a 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.
"Well, then, s'posin, johnson was to
say he'd bet 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 and
settle the bet. You'd go, well say, and
johnson d wander round to the back
of the house and pretty soon come front
again with a dog bigger n any four de-
cent dogs ought to be. And then s'po-
sin johnson d let go of that dog an
sick him on you, and he'd come at you
like a sixteen-inch shell out of how
itzer, and you'd get skeery about it and
try to hold the dog with your eye and
couldn't And s'posin' you'd suddenly
conclude that maybe your kind of an
eye wasn't calculated to hold that kind
of dog, and you'd conclude to break
for a plum tree, in order to have a
chance to collect your thoughts, and to
try to reflect what sort of an eye would
be best calculated to mollify that sort
of a dog. You ketch my idea, of
course?
Very well, then; s'posin' you'd take
your eye off of that dog; johnson, mind
you, all the time sicking him 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,
JohIson's dog was to grab you by the
leg and hold on like wise, shaking you
until you nearly lost your hold. And
sposin' johnson was to stand there and
holler, Fix your eye on him, Briggs
Why don't you manifest the power of
the human intellect?' p and so on-gass-
ing 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 half pound of your
meat in the dogs mouth, SO that YOU
had to be carried home on q 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 dam
ages, end make him pay heavily for
what that dog did? That's what 1 want
to get at"
The Judge thought for minute, and
then said
Well, Mr.. Briggs, don't think 1
could. If agreed to let johnson set
the dog at me. should be a party to
the transaction, and 1 could not re-
cover"
"Do You mean to say that the law
won't make that internal scoundrel,
johnson, suffer for letting his dog eat
me up?"
"I think not, if you state the case
properly"
"It won't, hey?" exclaimed Mr..
Briggs, Historically. "oh. very well !
very well It's a beautiful govern
ment, this is Beautiful, amt itP I
s'pose if that dog had chewed me all
up, and spit me out, it d have been all
the same to this constitutional republic.
But blame me if 1 don't have satisfac-
ton. I'll kill johnson, poison his dog.
and emisrate to some country where the
rights of citizens are protected. If I
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.
The HUSBANDS ExPERRNcR. -"I