Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/565

514 Kempster and Thomas Byrd for not selling their ale according to the law, — charging only a penny a pint for beverage of such extraordinary strength as to lead to assaults, affrays, bloodsheddings, and other misdemeanors; in other words, for giving their customers too good an article, — an offence not by any means likely to occur in our modern times.

In all times and in every land an over-free tongue has proved troublesome to its possessor. A man was sent to prison, in Plantagenet days, for twelve months, for offering to call the chief magistrate of London a scoundrel, and fight him too, if any one would pay him for his pains. King James I. ordered two Londoners to be whipped from Aldgate to Temple Bar for speaking disparagingly of Spain's unpopular representative, Gondemar; and Recorder Fleetward let every one know that liberty of speech was an offence against the Commonwealth by sending a saucy fellow to jail for venting his enjoyment of a hearty bread and cheese meal by swearing he had supped as well as my Lord Mayor.

A sapient coroner read a witness a severe lecture upon the enormity of being out of bed at one o'clock in the morning, refusing him his expenses by way of marking his disapproval of such an impropriety. Of the same way of thinking was Constable Snooks, who took a man into custody for presuming to come outside his own door at that early hour, after the zealous officer had put him inside the house. Another active and intelligent officer, catching a young man late at night in the heinous act of putting his latchkey into its proper keyhole, hauled him, spite of resistance, to the station-house; and the next morning had the satisfaction of hearing the magistrate indorse the action, and sentence the delinquent to a term of hard labor for "resisting an officer in the execution of his duty."

The law presumes that everybody knows what he may and may not do, and acting on that presumption unpleasantly enlightens those who are not so wise as they should be. An Illinois citizen brought his daughter's young man before a justice for violently ejecting him from his own parlor one Sunday evening. After hearing the other side, the justice said: "It appears that this young fellow was courting the plaintiff's gal, in plaintiffs parlor; that plaintiff intruded, and was put out by the defendant. Courting is a public necessity, and must not be interrupted. Therefore the law of Illinois will hold that a parent has no legal right in a room where courting is afoot. Defendant is discharged, and plaintiff must pay costs."

Different notions as to the necessity of courting prevail in Texas, or a susceptible individual would hardly have been fined for telling a pretty girl he should very much like to kiss her; leaving him as much puzzled as to where the justice came in, as the man in Indiana who, returning home from a journey, found the house empty, his wife having raffled all the furniture and absconded with the proceeds, and before he thoroughly comprehended the situation, found himself arrested by the sheriff for permitting gambling on his premises.

When in Rome do as the Romans do, is easily said but not so easily accomplished. Some years since, a Western man, spending a day in Boston, bought a cigar and started for a stroll. He had not gone many yards before he was tapped on the shoulder by a policeman, who politely informed him that he had incurred a penalty of two dollars by smoking in the street. The innocent offender handed over two dollars and walked on. Presently he came across a hungry-looking urchin, to whom he good-naturedly proffered a piece of gingerbread, and immediately a policeman was at his elbow intimating he had thereby violated a city ordinance. Tendering his informant a three-dollar bill, with instructions to keep the change, as he should want to whistle by and by and might as well pay beforehand, the disgusted visitor went on his way, resolved never again to make holiday in Boston.