Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1891-04-15
t THE CALF CASE.
An Iowa Lawsuit That Began
- Over Twenty Years Ago.
After OutlastlnR One Generation It Ii
= Taken Up by Another-Everybody
Connected with It Bankrupted
Except tho Lawyers.

Tribune, the telegraph brought the in
telligence that the famous "Jones coun-
ty calf casc," the most celebrated pro-
ceedings at law ever before the Iowa
courts, had been finally brought to
close after over twenty years of
active life by a verdict in the supreme
court for the plaintiff. We rcfrained
from commenting on it at the time as
we could not believe the report. 1t did
not seem possible that the able counsel
employed on both sides would let it die
outside of the United States supreme
court. Later ndVices, however, seem to
show that the first report was only too
true and that the Jones county calf case
is no more. AS u thing reared by the
hand of man it was, we suppose, only
natural that it should have an end.
1t was a bright day in early June,
1869, that five young calves might have
been observed vending their way down
a Jones county road, as young calves
will do. They were the property of
man named johnson. Soon these five
thoughtless young calves came to the
garden OF man named Miller. They
broke into this garden and ate mp and
tramped down sundry vegetables.
Miller came out and "siced" his dog on
the maurauding calves. The dog
chased them back up the pretty Jones
county road on a fast run. Indeed he
chased them so fast that when they ar
rived at their home three of them died
from exhaustion. The others were in
jured, one of them dying in 1872. The
other, it is true, fingered alonga as late as
1883, but it never was what it should
have been and was always more or less
troubled with palpitation Of the heart.
The next day after the calves came
home bringing the dog behind them
johnson engaged counsel and began q
spirited defense. This was the be-
ginning of the Jones county calf
case. The amount for which John
son sued was forty-five dollars, the
value of three calves. Miller, throgh
his counsel, set up the following de-
Tense: First, that the calves were never
at his place; second, that he noticed
when they broke in that they were sick
and about ready TO die; and third, that
they didn't die at all, but were sold by
johnson to a man in a neighboring
county. The case got good start in
80 and ran on vigorously through the
early and late 70's, took a new lease OF
life in December, 1879, and galloped
along through the SOS, showed great
activity during 1890, and opened the
present year in perhaps the best shape
that it has ever been in; but before
scarcely q month has passed it is cut off
in it's prime. Miller died in 1878, but
his children kept up the fight; johnson
held out to 1889, dying the next day
after his last calf, but active grandchil-
dren stood ready and anxious to take
up the struggle. Why the Iowa SUI
preme court, composed of judges who
were formerly lawyers, let the case end,
we cannot conceive.
For it is on the lawyers that the bur-
den of the ending Of the Jones county
calf case falls the heaviest. The first
dispatch said significantly: sit has
bankrupted everybody connected with
it except the attorneys" 1t comes
with especially crushing effect on Col.
Markham and family, counsel for the
plaintiff. Col. Markham began with
the case in 1869. He gave up his other
practice in 1875 and devoted himself
solely to it. Four years ago he associ-
ated his son, George Markham, a rising
young lawyer of thirty, with him in the
case, and it was the coloners intention
to retire at the end of this year and
leave it altogether to the younger man.
George Markham has little son six
years old, and many times his father
has taken him on his knee and told him
how he expected him to enter the law
and some day succeed to the case on
which his grandfather and father had
lived so long. Now, of course, all of
these bright prospects are shattered.
Col. Markham, it is true, can retire
with n comfortable fortune and George
has an excellent start in life, but the
Iowa supreme court has heartlessly left
the boy with no prospect whatever.
Thus the Jones county calf case
passes into history along with the civil
: war, the surrender of CORVALLIS and
tho Iisnnunr1, Of A y,,n,,;oo