Evading the Law. of the matrimonial bonds, and when he had done his office, satisfied his demands out of her own purse. A female toll-taker, sued by the turnpike trustees for money she held belonging to them, and ordered to pay up, induced a travelling tinker to make her his wife, and when summoned for contempt pro duced her marriage certificate, and pleaded that the trustees must look to her husband for payment of the debt, owning, at the same time, that she did not know, nor want to know, what had become of him. The truth of the saying, " Where there 's a will, there 's a way," was exemplified in a comical way by a tramp who was refused a night's lodging at a police-station in Maine, the officer on duty explaining, " We only lodge prisoners; you 've got to steal some thing, or assault somebody or something of that kind." " Oh, I 've got to assault some body, have I? " remarked the vagabond, and knocked one of the police-officers off his stool; and when the astonished victim had picked himself up, quietly said, " Give me as good a bed as you can, mister, 'cause I don't feel very well to-night." Shortly after the revision of the United States tariff, resulting in the imposition of heavy duty upon lead, and the freeing of imported works of art from taxation, twenty four grotesque-looking leaden effigies of Lord Brougham were to be seen, standing all in a row on one of the wharves in New York. They had been consigned to a mer chant by an English firm as works of art, — a description the custom-house officials refused to indorse, insisting that they were mere blocks of lead. The question was referred to the lawyers; and when, after three months' consideration, the courts pronounced in favor of their artistic origin, collectors of curiosi ties bought the hideous statues at prices far beyond their metallic value, to preserve them in remembrance of the Britishers having for once proved too cunning for their cousins. Experience teaches that legislation run ning counter to public opinion is so much legislation wasted. Wherever the Maine
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Liquor Law has been established, success ful tactics have been resorted to to evade it. A traveller in Colorado wishing to get some whiskey as an antidote against possible snake-bites, not a drop was to be had; but he was told he would find spirits of am monia, to be obtained at any drug-store, quite as efficacious. Determined to be pre pared for any amount of snake-poison, he had his quart flask filled, as advised; and tasting it out of curiosity, declared, if he had not known better, he could have sworn it was Bourbon whiskey. Mr. Ward's kangaroo was not such a profitable " cuss " to him as the half-starved wolf constituting the entire menagerie of a travelling showman, owning naught else, save a dirty tent and a mysterious-looking keg. Upon arriving at a likely " pitch," the showman announced that the wolf was on view at the charge of six cents a head. After one or two sight-seers had seen what was to be seen, patrons poured rapidly in, to come out wiping their lips, apparently satisfied with having had their money's worth. One man developed an unsuspected interest in natural history, looking in eight times in the course of an afternoon; then he made a start homeward, but after going a few steps, stopped, turned over his pockets, turned round, walked back to the tent, and as he paid the entrance fee, stuttered out, "I b-b-lieve I 'll take another look at that wolf!" Yankee smartness has been displayed in evading other laws, besides that especially admired by the advocates of permissive pro hibition. The suppression of the game of ninepins was met by the invention of ten pins. When the selling of clocks by trav elling traders was forbidden in Alabama, the Yankee clock-makers let them on lease for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. Ordered to close their bars at midnight, the San Francisco liquor-sellers shut their doors as the clock struck twelve, and opened them five minutes later for the next day's busi ness. — All the Year Round.
