It was a late hour when the distinguished com pany separated, and the commemorative exercises were over. Similar exercises, with other partici pants, will be repeated on February 4, 1990. Some of the waiters at the Centennial Celebra tion Banquet attempted to turn the occasion to their individual profit. Early in the evening cigars became a scarce commodity, and it was discovered that the greater part of those provided had been appropriated by waiters who were retailing them to the guests at twenty-five cents apiece. One fellow was found to have seventy-five stowed away in his pockets. A man is sometimes allowed to prescribe for a nuisance. Thus it is supposed that there are de cisions which will uphold a man in maintaining an offensive business next door to his neighbor's dwelling-house, provided he has kept it up twenty years without molestation. Apparently on this ground, an English magistrate recently dismissed a prosecution against a firm of London publishers for selling copies of Boccaccio's " Decameron." The following evidence, totally irrelevant upon the question whether or not it was an indecent book within the meaning of the governing statute, seems to have governed the decision : That it was a work of high literary merit, and had been recognized as such for five hundred years; that during that time it had never been out of print; and that in the British Museum there were no less than two hundred copies of it. One of our exchanges calls attention to the fact that in another similar case an edition of the " Arabian Nights " was suppressed in London. Perhaps the lovers of ancient litera ture of the racy sort may find comfort in a de cision of the Texas Court of Appeals, that where the composition is a written one it is the province of the judge to construe it, and determine whether or not it is obscene. The figure of a Texas judge perusing a good translation of this ancient but un savory work, for the purpose of " construing " it, would present a picture worthy of the pencil of Hogarth. There is really a sensible line of dis tinction between ancient and hence prescriptive filth, and modern and hence non-prescriptive filth. There are many passages in Shakspeare that would not be tolerated in modern drama, and vet no one would think of expunging them from an edition of the works of the great dramatist.
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A trial involving circumstances of an excep tionally romantic character will come before the Tribunal of Ragusa next month. About twenty years ago a peasant of the neighborhood of Ra gusa, being no longer able to support his wife, emigrated to the United States, leaving his better half in charge of the village priest. From the first luck smiled on him, and he was able to send the priest fifty florins a month for his wife. As his position improved he increased the amount of his monthly remittances, but the rascally reverendo handed only five florins a month to the woman. This went on for fifteen years, when this worthy clerical gentleman forged a certificate of the hus band's death, and placed it in the hands of his wife, whose death he likewise certified in a forged document and sent it to the husband in America. Shortly afterwards he piously betook himself to Corfu, where he hoped to spend the remainder of his days in peace, rejoicing in the remembrance of his good works. Fate had decided otherwise. The unfortunate woman, his victim, was forced to get her living by begging from the passengers of the Lloyd steamers that touched at Ragusa, and her husband sought consolation in re-marriage with a rich American lady, by whom he had two children. After twenty years' absence he resolved to make a tour in Europe with his family. He visited Paris, Vienna, Trieste, and finally Ragusa. On landing at that harbor, a beggarwoman ac costed him and asked for alms. They recognized each other simultaneously. The beggarwoman was his wife, whom he believed to have been dead several years! The priest has been arrested, and in all probability the second marriage will be annulled. — Irish Law Times.
A very curious lawsuit will be heard in a few days, in one of the law courts of Warsaw, which might be made the basis of an interesting novel. It is all about a swallow-tail coat, which Mr. L , an inhabitant of the ancient capital of Poland, ordered of a well-known tailor, and which for a covenanted sum was to be delivered punctually by a certain day. The tailor, however, like most Russian tailors and tradesmen, failed to keep his word, and de livered the garment the day after the term fixed, when it proved, as Russians say, as seasonable as mustard after supper. Mr. L not only refused to pay the stipulated sum, but commenced pro ceedings against the tailor for very heavy damages
