Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1902-02-14
Communicated
LITTLE WICOMlC0 RIVER.
Correspondents Account ofthat
COMPOUNDED Fish-Trap Case,
and His Connection There

nW LILO NOhoCSshoh AhokO~
with.
l told the CITIZEN readers couple
of weeks ago that / would tell them
about that COMPOUNDED 6sh-trap cas-,
going on at Heathsville when it was
over, il was alive.
Well, / have changed my mind. j
won't wait until it is ended, for if ]
do l fear that | will forget what it
began about, even if | live that long.
And here is the reason | have
changed my mind: The Sheriff
brought me nice little notice to
the effect that if / did not appear
before ethe Commissioner in Chan
Gerry at Heathsville and testify to
the truth in behalf of one of the
litigants, that the law would lam
bast the stuffing out of me. So /
went, and / have come to the con-
clusion that the case has a tendency
to become "linked sweetness Cor
something else) long drawn out"
That Yorktown battlefield case
that has just been thrown out of
court, after a hundred years of liti-.
CATION, and that Stafford gold mine,
with its fifty years of litigation, bid
fair to become infants in COMPARE
son with this new chancery case.
On the day i was put to the torture
| reached the Commissioner Office
just before William Henry Morri-
son, of Hacks Neck, vacated the
stand in my favor. l would fain
have relinquished the honor, but no,
they insisted that / should take
seat in an arm chair In a nice warm
corner. Ali thinks / to myself, if
they will only pay me experts
wages for the expert testimony 1
am expected to give it will be al
most as good as @. Harding Wal
ker's job of Senator and Member of
the Constitutional Convention, with
its two per diems of hard cash. But
alack-a-day! the little scrap of paper
given me by the Commissioner tells
me that / am entitled to receive
from one of the litigants the measly
sum of fifty cents per day and mile
age. And as the weather was so bad
that had to stop at the hotel for
two nights they even locked me the
mileage for those two days. Great
Cesar! l wonder how the tarnal
fools who made the laws regulating
the fees ever thought that fifty cents
a day would pay man for his time
and feed him at hotel when he was
compelled to stay, not to mention
the expense of horse? And all this
trouble and expense merely because
| was so unfortunate as to have had
some experience IN pound-net fish,
ing.
/ want to give the CITIZEN read
ers word of solemn warning
Never know anything when anybody
is going to law. Better be like little
Joe, who said: 81 don't know no.
think at all, 1 don't"
But to resume: When the afore-
said William Henry Morrison, of
the aforesaid Hacks Neck, arose
from the aforesaid chair in the afore-
said warm corner, he handed this
deponent handful of peppermint
lozengers, with the remark: "Take
'em, you'll need 'em;" and, by jocksl
did eat 'em, every one, except one.
l was kept on the stand the better
part of four days, and ever since
got away / have been working in
the woods, where can hide if see
the Sheriff coming to recall me, or
for anything else. am thinking of
describing a placard to the effect
that l am ''gone away; be back in
about ten days." and lacking it on
the front door.
Well, to resume again: After | got
comfortably fixed on the hard bot
tom of the arm chair and had placed
a peppermint handy the examining
counsel began to say: "Please state
thus and so;" and / stated thus and
so for some twenty-five questions.
All! this is easy, thinks / to myself.
Then the other counsel, after a few
preliminary questions, began to say:
"You have said, in answer to the
'steenth question, this, that and
'tother. DO you mean to say the
words you have used or do you not?
If SO, please explain?" And then /
had to explain this, that, 'tother and
which for about an hundred uues-
tons. / soon found that it was not
so easy after all. That Fostering
counsel wanted me to say things to
suit him and l didn't want to do it.
l thought l knew better, but he
seemed to think that he knew better.
He said | meant this and that, while
knew l meant 'tother and which.
So, anyhow, we couldn't agree. After
one bout he would retire to the ropes
fori breath and come up smiling for
another inning. But when he smiled |
l didn't, and when l smiled he
didn't. So you see We took turn |
about. Sometimes he thought he
had Landed solar plexus blow, but
missed his reckoning, and then again |
it took some lively boxing to send
him back to his corner. No matter
how many times he failed to draw
blood and bad to come again he was
true game. He would come with a |
rush, only to find out that wasn't
there. He tried right and left hand |
punches, mostly left-hand; all, sorts
OF swings, upper-cuts and under
cuts. He tried to trip me by pull
ing my leg from under me. and then |
he would butt me like sin. He
seemed to want to get me down and
stamp me. He kicked my shins and
iambasted me all over. Sometimes
ne would hit with both hands, kick
with both feet and butt all at one
time. Occasionally, while thus over
exerting himself, he sat down with
an audible thnd. After a oonYla sc