NOTES.
A recent Connecticut case is attracting attention and exciting considerable interest in that staid old commonwealth. It is nothing more nor less than a suit by a householder against a neighbor for damages alleged to have resulted from said neighbor placing fly screens in his windows, and thereby causing a greater number of flies to enter and invade plaintiff's house. The claim made seems to be that, under the common law, every family is bound to provide for its quota of flies, and that defendant, by the use of screens, fails to make provision for his proper allowance, and, by driving them elsewhere, raises the pro rata of the community and especially of plaintiff, whose house adjoins that of defendant. It is, we conceive, something new in jurisprudence, and its outcome will, no doubt, interest the members of the legal profession. The plan of defence which will be made by defendant has not yet been outlined. It is stated that under the wise provisions of the Connecticut law, the defendant will not be allowed to deny that it is his duty to provide for his share of the village flies; but it is understood that he will attempt to throw the burden of proof on the plaintiff by alleging that no members of his apportionment of flies can be found in plaintiff's house, they having, when barred out from their rightful buzzing place, adjourned in a body to a beer garden in close proximity. This defence, and the unavoidable rebuttal, will, of course, render necessary the identification of the flies in open court, both those found in the plaintiff's house, as well as those at the beer garden. Should the proprietor of the latter refuse to produce his flies, or should he secure their release by writ of habeas corpus, it will greatly complicate matters and add interesting features.—Central Law Journal.
The spirit of litigation was, perhaps, never carried to a greater extent than in a cause between two eminent potters of Handley Green, Staffordshire, for the sum of two pounds nine shillings and one penny. After being in Chancery eleven years, from 1749 to 1760, it was put an end to by John Morton and Randle Wilbraham, Esquires, to whom it was referred. They determined that the complainant filed his bill without any cause, and that he was indebted to the defendant, at the same time, for the sum for which he had brought this action. This they ordered him to pay, with a thousand guineas of costs.
The above case is, however, nearly equalled by an action brought a great many years ago in the County of Worcester, Mass., for the value of one turkey (Draper v. Rice). The facts were that a large wild turkey roosted on a tree near the land of Draper, and would at times eat with his turkeys. Draper, no doubt, expected to make sure of the turkey; but Rice, being out hunting, saw the turkey and shot it; and while returning home, the turkey was noticed by others to have two very large spurs. Rice sold the turkey to a merchant. Soon after Draper called on the merchant and wished to examine the turkey he had bought of Rice. Draper took the turkey and claimed it as one he had owned for some years, and which he knew to be his on account of its having but one spur. The case was closely contested and of course expensive. It was tried a number of times in court, and always went in favor of Rice. It was at last tried by arbitrators in the meetinghouse at Brookfield, and occupied three days. Rice having proved that the turkey he killed and sold had two spurs, the cause was decided in his favor. The cost to Draper was one thousand dollars, and to Rice five hundred dollars.
The Emperor of Morocco's Ambassador, in the reign of Charles II. visiting, among other places, Westminster Hall, asked his interpreter, "What was the profession of the gentlemen walking up and down in it?" The interpreter replied "the law." The ambassador seemed alarmed at the reply, and shaking his head at the vast number of professors, said,—"that in his master's dominions, although infinitely more extensive, there were but two of that profession allowed, one of whom the Emperor had been obliged lately to hang, to preserve peace and good humor among his subjects, and the other he always kept chained up to prevent his doing mischief."
The stock phrase used by the opponents of law reform is "the wisdom of our ancestors." This celebrated phrase was first used by Sir W. Grant and Mr. Canning, in order to stop Sir Samuel Romilly's menaced innovation of subject-
