Year: 1876

While Judge Copley was sitting in his
Office the other day looking over some law
papers, the door opened and a man hobbled
in upon crutches. Proceeding to chair,
and making cushion of some newspapers,
he sat down very gingerly, placed a band
aged leg upon another chair and said:


"Judge, my name is Briggs. called in,
Judge, to get your opinion about little
point of law. Mr.. Judge, s'posin' you lived
up the pike here half mile, next door to a
man named johnson. And s'posin' you and
johnson vas to get into an argument about
the human intellect, and you was to say to
johnson that splendid illustration of the
superiority of the human intellect was to be
found in the power of the human eye to re-
strain the ferocity of wild animal. And
s'posin' johnson was to remark that that
was all bosh, because nobody could hold
wild animal with the human eye; and you
should declare that you could hold the saw
agest beast that ever was born if you could
once fix your gaze on him.


"Well, then, s,posin' johnson was to say
he'd bet 800 he could bring tame animal
that you couldn't hold with your eye, and
you was to take him up on it, and johnson
was to ask you to come down to his place
to settle the bet. You'd go, we'll say, and
Johnson'd d wander round to the back of the
house and pretty soon come front again
with dog bigger'n any four decent dogs
ought to be. And then s'posen' Johnson'd
let go of that dog and sick him on to you,
and he'd come at you like a sixteen inch
shell out of a howitzer, and you'd get skeery
about it and try to hold the dog with your
eye and coodn't. And s'posin' you suddenly
conclude that maybe your kind of an eye
wasn't calculated to hold that kind of a
dog, and you'd conclude to break for plum
tree, in order to have chance to collect
your thoughts and try to reflect what sort of
an eye would be best calculated to mollify
that sort of a dog. You ketch my idea, of
course?


every well, then; s'posin' you'd take
your eye off of that dog: johnson, mind
you, all the time sicking him on and laugh
ing, and you'd turn and leg it for the tree,
and Begin to swarm up as fast as you
could. Well, s'posin' just as you got three
feet from the ground, Johnson's dog would
grab you by the leg and hold on like vice,
shaking you until you nearly lost your hold
And s'posin' johnson was to stand there
and holler. Fix your eye on him, Briggs!
Why don't you manifest the power of hu-
man intellect?' and so on-gassing away
with ironical remarks like those; and s'pos-
in he kept that dog on that leg until he
made you swear to pay the bet, and then,
at last, had to pry the dog off with a hot
poker, bringing away at the same time a
half pound of your meat in the dogs
mouth, so that you had to be carried home
on a stretcher, and to hire four doctors to
keep you from dying with lockjaw.


''S'posin' this, what want to know is,
couldn't you use johnson for damages, and
make him pay heavily for what that dog
did ? That's what want to get at"


The Judge thought for a minute and then
said: 'tWell, Mr.. Briggs, don't think
could. If agree to let Johnson set the dog
at me, l should be a party to the transac-
tion and could not recover"


S'Do you mean to say that the law won't
make that Internal scoundrel Johnson, suffer
for letting his dog eat me up?"


81 think not, if you state the case prop
erly." ~


SIT won't, hey ?" exclaimed Mr.. Briggs,
hysterically. ooh, very well! very we'll!
It's beautiful governments, this is! Beau
tiful, amt it? l s'pose if that dog had
chewed me all up, and spit me out it d we
been all the same to this constitutional re-
public. But blame me if don't have sat
isfaction. Ill kill johnson, poison his dog,
and emigrate to some country where the
rights of citizens are protected. If don't
you may bust me openP'


Then Mr.. Briggs got on his crutches and
hobbled out. He is still citizen, and will
vote at the next election.-Mar Adeler.