Howel the Good says that bees originated in Paradise; that, being banished thence on account of Adam's transgression, God blessed them, and so no mass can be solemnized without their wax. (Gwen. Code B. II, ch. xxvii.) Other busy B's have been the subject of litigation. Mr. Shirley, after quoting the following note, makes the subsequent re marks: " 5 Brunswick Place, September 19, 1842. Lady Marrable informs Mrs. Smith that it is her determination to leave the house in Brunswick Place as soon as she can take another, paying a week's rent, as all the bedrooms occupied, but one, are so infested with bugs that it is impossible to remain." And in pursuance of this deter mination the Marrables moved out, and Smith went to law with them, alleging that as they had taken the house for five weeks they had no right to leave it in this summary fashion, bugs or no bugs. The Marrables, on the other hand, successfully contended that it is an implied condition in the letting of a furnished house that it shall be reason ably fit for habitation, and that if it is not fit the tenant may quit without notice. (Shir ley's Com. Law Cases, 67; 11 M. & W. 5.)
This famous case, after being disrespectfully spoken of for many years, was in 1877 ex pressly affirmed in Wilson v. Finch-Hatton (2 Ex. Div. 336). In a late case in England it was decided that the presence of six of these cimices lectularii in an attic on the third floor of a furnished house was not such a taking pos session of the house by them as to oust the tenant, and to render justifiable a refusal to carry out the contract and pay the rent. To make this paper a little more scientific these facts are added : It takes a bed-bug eleven weeks to attain its full size; they have been known to live a year without food without becoming emaciated; and cock roaches are as fond of preying upon them as they of attacking the genus homo. (34 Alb. L. J. 82.) In India, at one time, it was a costly luxury to demolish a mosquito. The Gentoo law said, " If a man kill an insect, the magis trate shall fine him ten puns of couries." For who could tell whose great-grandfather's spirit might, perchance, be lurking in that very dipteron that was fattening on one's nose.
