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An act was passed to prohibit the playing at nine pins, (a very foolish act, as the Americans have so few amusements): as soon as the law was put in force, it was notified every where, “ Ten pins played here," and they have been played every where, ever since.

Another act was passed to put down billiard tables, and in this instance every precaution was taken by an accurate description of the billiard table, that the law might be enforced. Whereupon an extra pocket was added to the billiard table, and thus the law was evaded.

When I was at Louisville, a bill which had been brought in by Congress, to prevent the numerous accidents which occured in steam navigation, came into force. Inspectors were appointed to see that the steam-boats complied with the regulations; and those boats which were not provided according to law, did not receive the certificate from the inspectors, and were liable to a fine of five hundred dollars if they navigated without it. A steam-boat was ready to start;

the passengers clubbed together and subscribed half the sum, (two hundred and fifty dollars), and, as the informer was to have half the penalty, the captain of the boat went and informed against himself and received the other half; and thus was the fine paid.

At Baltimore, in consequence of the prevalence of hydrophobia, the civic authorities passed a law, that all dogs should be muzzled, or, rather, the terms were, "that all dogs should wear a muzzle," or the owner of a dog not wearing a muzzle, should be brought up and fined; and the regulation further stated that anybody convicted of having " removed the muzzle from off a dog should also be severely fined." A man, therefore, tied a muzzle to his dog's tail (the act not stating where the muzzle was to be placed). One of the city officers, perceiving this dog with his muzzle at the wrong end, took possession of the dog and brought it to the Town-hall; its master, being well known, was summoned, and appeared.

He

proved that he had complied with the act, in having fixed a muzzle on the dog; and, further, the city officer having taken the muzzle off the dog's tail, he insisted that he should be fined five dollars for so doing.

The striped pig, I have already mentioned; but were I to relate all I have been told upon this head, it would occupy too much of the reader's time and patience.

The mass of the citizens of the United States have certainly a very great dislike to all law except their own, i. e. ; the decision of the majority; and it must be acknowledged that it is not only the principle of equality, but the parties who are elected as district judges, that, by their own conduct, contribute much to that want of respect with which they are treated in their courts. When a judge on his bench sits half asleep, with his hat on, and his coat and shoes off; his heels kicking upon the railing or table which is as high or higher than his head; his toes peeping through a pair of ol

worsted stockings, and with a huge quid of tobacco in his cheek, you cannot expect that much respect will be paid to him. Yet such is even now the practice in the interior of the Western States. I was much amused at reading an English critique upon a work by Judge Hall (a district judge), in which the writer says, "We can imagine his honour in all the solemnity of his flowing wig," &c. &c. The last time I saw his honour he was cashier to a bank at Cincinnati, thumbing American bank-notes-dirtier work than is ever practised in the lowest grade of the law, as any one would say if he had ever had many American bank-notes in his

possession.

As may be supposed, in a new country like America, many odd scenes take place. In the towns in the interior, a lawyer's office is generally a small wooden house, of one room, twelve feet square, built of clap board, and with the door wide open; and the little domicile with its tenant used to remind me of a spider in its web waiting for flies.

Not forty years back, on the other side of the Alleghany Mountains, deer skins at forty cents per pound, and the furs of other animals at a settled price, were legal tenders, and received both by judges and lawyers as fees. The lawyers in the towns on the banks of the Susquehanna, where it appears the people, (notwithstanding Campbell's beautiful description,) were extremely litigious, used to receive all their fees in kind, such as skins, corn, whisky, &c. &c., and, as soon as they had sufficient to load a raft, were to be seen gliding down the river to dispose of their cargo at the first favourable mart for produce. Had they worn the wigs and gown of our own legal profession, the effect would have been much more picturesque.

There is a record of a very curious trial which occurred in the State of New York. A man had lent a large iron kettle, or boiler, to another, and it being returned cracked, an action was brought against the borrower for the value of the kettle. After the plaintiff's case had been

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