The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1906-01-13
QUEER PROBLEMS OF Law.

Hundreds Of years of test cases have
not yet elucidated all the possible
points of difficulty in the English law.
Here is remarkable problem with
which the Blackburn lawyers have
just been confronted: An English
gentleman had twin sons who were
born within few minutes of each
other. He made will that his prop
erty in Australia should go to which
ever of the two sons arrived at the
age of FL 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
trailian time is some hours in advance
of Greenwich, and, therefore, the
young man out there was 2I before
his elder brother at home. Which
0f THESE tVVo Bf9tHeF5 Is iegaiiy en-
titled to the property? The question
has not yet been decided, and in the
meantime readers may exercise their
own acumen upon It.
Are eggs, eggs, or are only hens
eggs eggs? This may seem a ridic-
ulous question, but nice shades of
meaning are involved, and case
which turned upon it went through
two or three courts of law. A lady
sent an order for a dozen eggs to
Jo.~,,.,o,, os,5 he cent 1,o~ 1,1r1yc1
eggs. She sent them back as not
being what she ordered, but he re-
fused to take them. She, in turn,
declined to keep them, and some time
elapsing between their journeys from
the house to the shop, the eggs went
bad, and eventually the shopkeeper
sued the lady for IS. 3D., their value.
The county court judge ordered
her to pay, declaring that ducks
eggs were as much eggs as any
others but the lady appealed, and
the Kings Bench reversed the de-
cision on the ground that when party
ordered eggs hens eggs were meant
and if any other contention were ad-
mitted any kind ofeggs might be sent,
such as pigeons canaries' or even
rattlesnakes' Ducks eggs, it was
decided, were not eggsin the ordinary
meaning of the term.
Are the grandchildren of man
also 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,
passed in the reign ofthe late Queen,
Victoria, laid it down that the faith
er and the grandfather, the mother
and the grandmother, and the chill
dren of any poor person, being of suf-
fcient ability, shall relieve and main
tain any such poor person"
The argument was that, accord
ing to the context, grandchildren
were to be reckoned as children for
this purpose, just as grandparents
were reckoned as parents. On the
other side it was argued that if grand
children were children then great
grandchildren were children also, and
that man might in this way be called
upon to support his father and moth
er, his four grandparents, his eight
great-grandparents and as many
grandchildren and great-grandchil-
dren as he might be lucky or unlucky
enough to possess.
Is skinned milk milkl A man
asked for a glass of milk to drink and
and was given skinned milk, and
the purveyor was fined for it but in
higher court the decision was re-
versed, it being contended at the time
that SKINNED milk was really much
more milk than milk that was not
skinned, since the latter contained
something that was not milk at all
that is, cream.