Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/287



THE "CONSPIRACY TO MURDER" CASE—ARREST OF EDDY AND ARENS ON A SENSATIONAL CHARGE—HEARING IN COURT—DISCHARGE OF THE DEFENDANTS

1877 to 1879 Mrs. Eddy was in the law-courts so frequently that the Boston newspapers began to feature her litigations and to refer to them and to her with disrespectful jocularity.

In March, 1877, George W. Barry, one of her students, brought his suit against Mrs. Eddy for twenty-seven hundred dollars for services rendered her in copying the manuscript of Science and Health, attending to her business, storing her goods, putting down her carpets, working in her garden, and paying out money for her on various accounts. This suit dragged on until October, 1879, when it was decided in Barry's favour, the referee awarding him three hundred and ninety-five dollars and forty cents, with interest from the date of his writ.

In February of 1878, Mrs. Eddy brought suit against Richard Kennedy in the Municipal Court of Suffolk County to recover seven hundred and fifty dollars upon a promissory note which bore the date February, 1870, several months