WHEN MIGHT WAS RIGHT. By Archibald R. Watson. THAT there should ever have been an carried them when trial by wager of battle age when the violence of combat was was introduced. But here they stopped to sanctioned by the law, seems strange in these think. How about witches/ It was a well days of crusade against pugilists and duel known fact that dogs' teeth, bits of stone and such things if worn about the person, lists. In early times, however, when igno rance held extensive sway, and superstition would enlist the sympathies of these unearth caused humanity to quake with the dread of ly creatures. In view of the absolutely im unknown evils; when a martial spirit ruled partial attitude of Heaven, might not the tide the mind of man, tinctured with fanciful of war, in a doubtful case, be turned in favor religious conceptions, it was not necessarily of the disputant who possessed these sym contempt of court to resort to an argument bols of sorcery? Legal ingenuity triumphed. of arms in its presence. Far from it; for, A prefatory oath was devised, embracing, under circumstances, the grave and dignified with true legal comprehensiveness, " all possi justices, ermined and bewigged, would even ble cases." The parties were made to pro "arrange the preliminaries," and then ob claim: " Hear this, ye justices, that I have serve with that disinterested interest which this day neither cat, drank, nor have upon me, becomes the judiciary, the belligerent liti neither bone, stone, nor grass; nor any en gants. With weapons sharper than tongue of chantment, sorcery or 'witchcraft, whereby the shrewdest lawyer, with repartee readier than law of God may be abased, or the law of the anything presently forensic, and with confi devil exalted. So help me God and his saints." dence more sublime than any modern justice And so the farce proceeded. From sun seeker, the plaintiff and defendant appealed rise until sunset, the conflict, if not sooner to a heavenly tribunal to judge between their terminated, might continue. By this means conflicting pretensions and manifest its deci was the guilt or innocence, right or wrong sion in the overthrow of him whose arm was of the litigants decided. As legally contro raised unrighteously. What a glorious, chiv verted facts are now-a-days determined by alrous thing, was this simple and bold de their probability, as established by evidence, vice! What an exalted notion that of an this monument to the ignorance, superstition original resort to a dispensary of justice, and ferocity of our progenitors has been omniscient, omnipotent and incorruptible! destroyed. Wager of battle is no longer in And was not ample sanction and perhaps vogue. Wrongs are redressed and rights suggestion, afforded by the scriptural prece recognized by means of gentler arts, just as effective, and, as we like to say, " much more dent of David and the giant? Thus far the enthusiasm of our ancestors civilized."
