Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/496

 SQUIRE ATTOM'S DECISIONS that it has been waiting these ten years to announce, to wit: — IX. This court looks upon equity as merely a special allowance of the manifesta tion, applied to remedies only, of the good conscience of the generally good and con venient law; or, that polity and its resultant practice in jurisprudence which may be resorted to to interfere with the necessarily general course of the law, where, without its own faults its operation or want of operation, under the particular circumstances of a case, may be repugnant to its basic reason. Just so. And this is mentioned here because the maxim which seems to be involved in the case at bar is one which particularly invites discussion of the relation of equity to law. Now, it amounts to the same in the end whether the misrepresentation is simply treated as a circumstance showing failure of contract, or that this court applies "good conscience" to the case, — which latter would only be necessary in case the solemnity of the written agreement should be held to overbalance the oral evidence of fraud. X. (In the short-hand notes under this number twenty-two (22) different words ranging from five (5) to eight(8) syllables in length each are used. The words "flag" is used seventeen (17) times and the word "constitution" nine (9) times. And the editor, instead of bringing it out here has about made up his mind to send it to some Illinois or New York state commercial house of enterprise to be rebussed so far as "flag" is concerned, colored up and worked into a "patriotic" advertisement, for distribution everywhere, maybe, except in Nebraska.) XI. It is seldom that an instrument per taining to the subject matter of a suit at law or in equity has seemed to threaten the proper poise of a court, as has the identical pump that has figured in the case at bar. If it were a pump designed to be used in such a receptacle or depositary of water as a well or cistern, or the hold of a vessel, or perchance the human stomach, all might have gone well, and at least a half a day of

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the valuable time of this court, — to say nothing of noise and confusion averted from interfering with the solemn and weighty view with which the equity, the law, and the facts are in all cases entitled to be scanned, — saved. The curiosity of the constable might have been overlooked owing to the nature of the pump which, be it repeated, was not designed to draw up for man the spark ling beverage that in an early day this court was wont to drink from the old oaken bucket. Nor was it designed to use in connection with art artificial receptacle for water in capacity usually measured by the token of many barrels, in many cases even to an hundred or more, — in short, a rain-water cistern. All this interest and fuss has been occasioned by a mechanical product in the pump line adapted only to use in extracting liquid from so small a confinement as one single barrel, or possibly "half," a keg, or an "eighth." XII. This court would not mind the noise of counsel, nor care whether they used the pumps in Maine, or used troughs in that distant land, nor whether in Milwaukee they drank theirs out of fire plugs, supposing they there used that kind of liquid for all purposes instead of water; but it is casting a frightful burden on the equity side of this court to have the law so far lapse as that there should be failure to secure considera tion of this case by a jury. It will be ad mitted by the court that the first panel of the jury was secured with difficulty, the six peers all knowing something about the con tentions as to the merits. But when Juror Pepper did not appear after the noon hour, and was later tracked by this court's vigilant and curious constable from one to another of ten " places " that he had visited in making a comprehensive inspection of the workings of that implement, often and often studying the matter through large sized glasses; and when again, after exhausting large venires in this court in the effort to fill his place, it was given up as impossible to find another man in town but knew altogether too much