Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 05.pdf/418

 The Lawyer s Easy Cliair. of Wanting, and the abbot pleaded that the gathering which he held was a wake, and not a fair; yet he admitted that there was always selling and buying there. But it is not only as a law term that the word ' fair ' is well defined; it is well recognized in ordinary language as a meeting of people for buying and selling. Allusion was made during the argument to ' Vanity Fair ' as described by Hunyan. He was a great master of English, and he describes the fair as ' a fair wherein should be sold all sorts of vanity.' Therefore at this fair are all such merchandise sold as houses, lands, trades, honors, preferments. No doubt, in connection with the great annual or quarterly fairs, amuse ments and sports were provided for the people; but these were merely incident to the business of the fair. In modern times the commercial importance of fairs has greatly diminished, and the amusements which accompany the holding of fairs often excite much more attention than the buying and selling. But it seems to me that this circumstance does not alter the meaning of the word 'fair.' No doubt words may, and often do, undergo a change of meaning, and a word that was originally used t > signify one thing may by usage come to be properlyapplied to something different. But I cannot find any authority for the use of the word 'fair 'as applied to a wake, or a show, or an exhibition. A cattle fair still means a fair where cattle are sold, a fancy fair where fancy articles are sold. There are many occasions where shows and exhibitions are gathered together; for instance, at horse-race meetings, at boat-races, at great football matches, and other outdoor meetings; yet I think such gatherings cannot properly be spoken of as fairs. It is said that there are such things as pleasure fairs. I am not sure that there is any such phrase in common use. But if there is it can, I think, only mean a fair at which toys, trinkets, and such-like articles are sold. The fair mentioned in the old song to which the young man went to buy blue ribbon for his sweetheart may have been a pleasure fair, but it was a fair at which blue ribbon was sold, and I suppose other like commodities. From what I have said I should think, if the word 'fair' stood alone in the section of the Act of Parliament, that it would not apply to a mere collection of contrivances for amusement. But the words used are ' any market or fair; ' and although the word ' or ' is disjunctive, still I think it is interpreta tive or expository, and that the proximity of the word • market' emphasizes the sense in which the word 'fair ' is used."

Lawrance, J., said: — "I may say that I asked my brother Hruce to deliver his carefully written judgment first, to see if I could be convinced by his arguments, but I still differ from the conclusion arrived at by him. I take, if I may say so, a broader and wider view of the meaning of the word ' fair.' I quite agree that the chief idea in the word ' fair' is that of buying and selling, but amusements have always been a consequence of people coming together for buying and sell ing, and the legislature has interfered with some fairs which were pleasure fairs. I do not think that in this case it was intended that the corporation of Walsall should have full control only over the business part of the fairs held there in. The question here is. whether the appellant, by 49

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allowing these contrivances and amusements on his land, was holding a ' fair ' on his land. I think he was, and I think that this was a ' fair ' in the ordinary sense of the word, and that therefore it was on the part of the appel lant an interference with the rights of the corporation of Walsall. I am of opinion, therefore, that this conviction was right."

A CRAZY MAN. — In State v. Schaefer (Missouri), 22 S. W. Керт 447, a conviction of murder, the defence was insanity. The defendant appears to have been a strangely eccentric person : but as it was not made to appear that he did not know right from wrong, the conviction was affirmed. In the evidence of his father was the following : — "Q. — Can you tell us of anything else he would indulge in that led you to believe he was out of his mind? A. — Well, I noticed him at first when he — About the hair. He did n't want to have hair on his eyebrows, and he went to pull it out. and he wanted to get the hair out altogether. He did n't want to have no beard on. He talked queerly. Get upon a chair and say that is just the size he want to be, — just like a shadow. He wanted nine foot. And then he talk like he wanted to build castles, and buy O'Fallon park, and build a castle on it He want to buy the Visitation Convent, and build a big college, and then to learn the doctors. He wanted to build a big college and a hospital where the Visitation Convent is, and to endow it with about one million or one and one-half millions to run it. He want to cure all sickness, — leprosy, and all sickness that was going on. He wanted to learn the doctors to treat all those, and then get medicine out. He was going to teach the doctors himself. When he was vexed, he was wild all the time then. He wanted to unite all the Indians, north and south, all together, against the whites, to kill the whites; that the white race was no good; that the Indians would not molest or tease anybody. He all the time — whatever plan he had — all the time wanted to be the head or leader of it. He would let his hair grow long. He always liked long hair. He would make plans to build men-ofwar — sometimes he would say one thousand or a couple of thousand — to go to Europe. He wanted to go to Ireland and be their king, and at other times he want to go to Africa. When the fight was there, he wanted to bring the Indians to fight the Zulus and conquer them, and then be their king or emperor in Africa. He thought he would go all over Europe and conquer it, and all the time he would be the head man. Q — Did he ever enter tain the notion of mutilating himself? A. — Oh, yes. We had awful trouble that time he threatened to. He wanted to do that in order to get big. He had his idea that he would then get his nine feet, and stout, extraordi narily stout, too; and he often threatened that he would pay any amount to a doctor, or to any one, to do it for him; and of course, we all the time threatened him that if he do anything like that we have to lock him up in a crazy asylum; and then I told him that any doctor that would undertake to do a thing like that, that I would prosecute him as high as 1 could. But then I was afraid, often and often, that he would do it himself, only I