Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories

Excerpt: ...law, Christian could keep the chicken; or, if he preferred, he could restore its remains to the owner and receive damages in produce to an amount equivalent to the waste and injury wrought by the trespasser. The court records set forth that the said Christian aforesaid did deliver the aforesaid remains to the said Elizabeth Young, and did demand one bushel of yams in satisfaction of the damage done. But Elizabeth Young considered the demand exorbitant; the parties could not agree; therefore Christian brought suit in the courts. He lost his case in the justice's court; at least, he was awarded only a half-peck of yams, which he considered insufficient, and in the nature of a defeat. He appealed. The case lingered several years in an ascending grade of courts, and always resulted in decrees sustaining the original verdict; and finally the thing got into the supreme court, and there it stuck for twenty years. But last summer, even the supreme court managed to arrive at a decision at last. Once more the original verdict was sustained. Christian then said he was satisfied; but Stavely was present, and whispered to him and to his lawyer, suggesting, as a mere form, that the original law be exhibited, in order to make sure that it still existed. It seemed an odd idea, but an ingenious one. So the demand was made. A messenger was sent to the magistrate's house; he presently returned with the tidings that it had disappeared from among the state archives. The court now pronounced its late decision void, since it had been made under a law which had no actual existence. Great excitement ensued immediately. The news swept abroad over the whole island that the palladium of the public liberties was lost