The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1892-03-16

A man so endowed is the man the
times demand. Great legal ability,
parliamentary experience, high dignity,
fame won on other fields, in other
arenas, do not constitute the equip
ment of an efficient chief executive of
state needing and ambitious to get
ahead industrially.
A REMARKABLE decision has just
been handed down by Judge Taft in a
Lamoille county case. Thomas j. Ba-
ker sued one Jacobs in assumpsit, and
received verdict. Baker was pleased,
and directed the deputy sheriff who had
the jury in charge to get them together
and set up the cigars at Bakers ex-
pense. The court got wind of the case
and set aside the verdict. Baker then
took the case to the supreme court,
where was resurrected the old statute
against treating jurors especially with
"victuals and drink" 1t was argued
that tobacco was both a victual and
drink. Without deciding that point,
the court held it to be treating of the
jurors within the true intent and mean
ing of the act, and set aside the YER
dict. Here is Judge Taft's unique
opinion: Tobacco is both a victual
and drink. 1t is taken as a nourish-
ment, sustenance, food, etc. therefore
victual. 1t is not an obsolete use of
the word to call it drink. Joaquin Mil
Ter says: / drink the winds as drink
ing wine.' If a man can drink wind
| think he can drink tobacco smoke,
vile and disgusting as it is. A man is
compelled to drink it by having it pulled
in his face on all occasions and in all
places from the cradle to the grave. 1t
is drink" The New York Herald
says: We predict for this opinion a
conspicuous place among the comic ju-
dicial utterances of the day."
Now what is this the gales are bring.
ing down from the twin cities of La
noble county? Does the rising sound
of political battle still invite the war
horse of that spunky province to min
gle in the frayp And is the somewhat
elaborate eulogy of Victor 1. Spear in
the NeWs and Citizen of last week the
breath of his nostrils? Does he scent
the battle afar off, and is he in it" ?
There were rumors afloat not many
weeks ago of some sort of combine -
with which certain names were asso-
ciated, aud the boom from up among
the hills of Lamoille, bearing sort OF
semi-official character, is confrmatorY
of some things the many-tongued vi
rago was babbling. Well, Mr., Spear is
fine man. The only exception the
skeptcal could file to our more or less
official contemporaries bill is possibly
the somewhat too sweeping way in
which it is maintained that our Orange
county friend bias earned his bread by
the sweat of his brow. We mistrust
there is an element of fiction in this
part of an otherwise quite unvarnshed
tale. Substitute Orange county wool
and Merino sheep for possibly about
one-half the "sweat," and we appre.
bend that Mr.. Spear will himself be
more inclined to sign the bill. Before
the St. Adams Messenger, which pub
fishes the Hyde Park article and effu.
sively endorses it, brushes Mr.. Spears
ribs in the ecstasy of a joyful embrace
of "the representative farmer" of its
long quest, it should consider whether
tendency to wool-buying and specu
lating in Merino bucks is in fact the
attribute of representative of the
industry sans reproche. Banker Stran.
ahan would, however, hitch up well
with Farmer Spear, and this fact might
reconcile the Messenger to some small
deficiencies in the farmers "represen'
tative" quality. There is often gap
more less yawning, between the ideal
and the real.