Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/158

 police. The chief went with the drays and he acted with great kindness and without anger. He told the plaintiffs that the tent belonged to Harper and not to them, and that he would take it or arrest them if they persisted in obstructing him. Yet, they persisted in doing wrong. They deliberately chose to be arrested and to go to jail sooner than to let Harper have his tent. For over three years Harper had been in possession of the tenement house, which was traded to the Masons for a pool room outfit. Harper had paid his rent monthly and was a tenant from year to year. Yet the Masons wrongfully treated Harper as a tenant from month to month. They served on him a notice to quit, and by error of law obtained a judgment for possession. Harper had deposited in the Enderlin Bank $22.50 to pay rent to the night of July 13, 1919, and on entry of the judgment Mason took the $22.50 and refused to refund any part of it. Hence Harper retained the key of the house and did not give up possession, and the Masons broke in through a window and then claimed possession of the house and the tent. The record is long and it abounds with numerous errors:

(1) The court erred by refusing to permit Harper to prove the ownership of the tent. (2) The court erred by refusing to permit proof that Harper had paid rent to the night of July 13th, that Harper held the keys of the house and did not give possession to the Masons. With such proof and such facts Harper, and those who acted for him, had a perfect right to take possession of the tent. But if the tent did not belong to Harper, then, of course, he had no right to take it, and then he was liable for both actual and punitory damages. So it was clear and manifest error to exclude evidence concerning the ownership of the tent, the payment of rent to July 13th, and the way in which the Masons broke into the house.

Now it is truly said of Mr. Mason that at the time of the trouble he had not long resided in Enderlin. “He had at various times been engaged in the occupations of bartender, oil stock salesman, pool hall keeper, brakeman, and lastly, switchman, and that he had lived in half a dozen or more places since his marriage.” Then it is assumed that by the indignity suffered he must have been grievously affected and thwarted in aspirations to establish himself as a respectable citizen of the community. However, there is good reason for thinking that he deliberately chose the paths of the wrongdoer and that he acted as the bully of the community, threatened the chief magistrate, and undertook by force and intimidation to withhold a tent which did not belong to him, and broke into a tene-