The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1905-11-22
PROBLEMS OF LAW.
Cases With Which English Judges
and Lawyers Have struoqled.

ana Lawyers Have struggled.
Hundreds of years of test cases
have not yet elucidated all the pos
sible points of difficulty in the English
law.
Here is a remarkable problem with
which the Blackburn lawyers have just
been confronted. An English gentle
man had twin sons who were born
within a few minutes of each other
lie made a will that his property in
Australia should go to whichever of
the two sons arrived at the age Of II
first.
The younger of the two emigrated
to Australia, while the other one re-
mained in England, and the former
was still in the antipodes at the time
of his coming of age. Now Aus
tralia time is some time in advance
of Greenwich, and, therefore, the
young man out there was q before
his elder brother at home. Which
of these two brothers is legally en-
titled to the property? The question
has not yet been decided, and in the
mean time readers may exercise their
own acumen upon it.
Are eggs eggs, or are only hens
eggs eggs? This may seem a ridicul-
Gus question, but nice shades of mean
ing are involved, and a case which
turned upon it went through two or
three courts of law. A lady sent an
order for a dozen eggs to dairyman
and he sent her ducks eggs. She sent
them back as not being what she or
dered, but he refused to take them.
She, in turn, declined to keep them,
and some time ciapsing between their
journeys from the house TO the shop,
the eggs went bad, and eventually the
shopkeeper sued the lady for Is. Cd,
their value.
The county court judge ordered her
to pay, declaring that ducks eggs
were as much eggs as any others; but
the woman appealed, and Kings
Bench reversed the decision on the
ground that when party ordered
eggs, hens eggs we're meant, and if
any other contention we're admitted
any kind of eggs might be sent, such
as pigeons, canaries' or even rattle
snakes. Ducks eggs it was decided,
were not eggs in the ordinary mean
ing of the term.
Are the grandchildren of man al
so his children? In the legal sense
this question is not so absurd as it
looks, and some time ago it was most
seriously and laboriOusly contended in
the courts that according to act of
parliament they were.
The particular act in question, pass
ed in the reign of the late Queen Vic
toria, laid it down that "the father
and the grandfather, the mother and
the grandmother, and the children of
any poor person being of sufficient
ability, shall relieve and maintain any
such poor person.
The argument was that, according
to the context, grandchildren were to
be reckoned as children for this pur-
pose, just as grandparents were reck-
oned as parents. On the other side
IL was argued that if grandchildren
were children, then great-grandchil
dren we're children also and that a
man might in this way be called upon
to support his father and mother, his
four grandparents, his eight great |
and as many grandchil- |
iren and greatgrandchildre as he |
might be lucky or unlucky enough to |
possess.
Is skinned milk milk? A man ask
ed for glass of milk to drink and |
was given skinned milk, and the pur-
seyor was fined for it; but in high.
Or court the decision was reversed,
t being contended at the time that |
milk was really much more
milk than milk that was not SKINNED,
since the latter contained something
hat was not milk at all-that is,