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1. Your claim is not dead, but sleepeth. 2. It has n't yet been submitted. 3. It shall be submitted at once. 4. He (from a cursory view) thinks it will be allowed. 5. If more evidence is needed, you will be advised at once. 6. It takes about three weeks for the certificate to issue after submission. I am glad that I stirred it up for you; and you, my dear fellow, are welcome to my services. Yours truly,
LEGAL ANTIQUITIES.
IN Virginia, where tobacco was the chief produc tion, it was early used as money. Taxes were col lected and fines assessed in tobacco by weight. In 1624 it was enacted that any person absenting him self from divine service any Sunday should forfeit a pound of tobacco, and if absent four consecutive Sundays, fifty pounds of tobacco. The law ex tended to ministers, who were required to " preach in the forenoon and catechise in the afternoon of every Sunday," under a forfeiture of 500 pounds of tobacco. But for any " popish recusant " who should assume to exercise a public office, or even remain in the colony " above five days after warn ing," the penalty was 1,000 pounds of tobaccoClergymen were paid in tobacco; but in 1632, owing to the low price of that commodity, there was added to their allowance "every twentyeth calfe, kidde, and pigge." The value of tobacco, and almost everytliing else, was regulated by stat ute or judicial decree. In Maryland (1699) it was enacted that every tavern-keeper who de manded above i o pounds of tobacco for a gallon of small beer, 20 pounds for a gallon of strong beer, 4 pounds for a night's lodging in a bed, or i2 pounds for a peck of oats, should forfeit for each offence 500 pounds of tobacco.
FACETIÆ. BARON MAULE once rebuked the arrogance of Mr. Cresswell, who had been treating the Bench with a lack of courtesy, in the following terms : "Mr. Cresswell, I am perfectly willing to admit
my vast inferiority to yourself. Still, I am a vertebrated animal, and for the last half-hour you have spoken to me in language which God Al mighty himself would hesitate to address to a black beetle." OLD SQUIRE С , one of the first clerks of Cass County, Missouri, was a man who, although his early education had been sadly neglected, fairly revelled in the use of big words. The grand jury had come into court to report a lot of indictments which it had found, and upon which the foreman had properly indorsed " A true bill," signing his name. The Clerk, not being satisfied with the simplicity with which Justice was cloth ing herself, wrote upon each indictment, under the foreman's name, the following : " We, the un dersigned jurors, concur in the above effluvia." To which each juror signed his name, supposing it to be some necessary legal appendage. WE print the following two genuine verdicts, rendered by an old coroner in Kentucky, as an aid to the gentlemen of the same profession in the discharge of their delicate duties : STATE OF KENTUCKY I RUSSELL COUNTY ) An inquisition taken for the people of the State of Kentucky and County of Russell this z8th day of October 1854 before Mr. M. W. С Crowner of said County of Russell upon view of the body of a male man name unknown, then and there laying dead upon the oaths of twelve good and lawful men of the people of the said State and County of Russell and when and where the same come to his death, we the jury do agree, the body come to his death by death unknown. M. W. С С R. С. Crowner pfthc >aid County.s &> State.
STATE OF KENTUCKY 1 gs RUSSELL COUNTY Í Inquisitions held over the body of Hugh Holmes deseasts about December 8th 1853. We of the said jury by being summoned and qualified and having the evidences and making true and diligious researchments over the said body of said deseasts twelve men met & being duly sworn into the case beleaves that he come to his death by some fit or other of apoplexy. Doctor being sworn by myself Crowner states that the Lobos membrane of the spinal disease was affected to considerable extent. M. W. С С. R. С. Crmvner of the said County.s fr, State.
