By Irving Browne.
CURRENT TOPICS. THE WHEEL OF TORTURE. (Town of Davis v. Davis, 40 W. Va. 464.) A horizontal circular frame, Just raised above the ground. With seats for people on the same, Or hobby horses on the bound. Revolved by steam at high velocity, Stirred up their stomachs with atrocity. ft whirled till ten o'clock at night, The riders screamed in raillery, And music played, and its noisy flight, Applauded by the gallery, With screeching of the fell steam-whistle, Made hair of neighboring dwellers bristle. It roused them from their early dreams, And kept them long awake, In dread of more unearthly screams, Until their heads did ache : Such is imagination's power O'er nervous folk at midnight hour. The sufferers at length complained Unto the town authority, Praying the nuisance be restrained; And by a large majority That wheel of torture was abated Instead of being regulated. Two of the judges thought this right; But other two dissented — They deemed at ten o'clock at night People should be contented To lie awake in summer weather While pleasure-seekers flock together. "The engine was a business lawful; They might prevent the noise; And really there was nothing awful In shouts of girls and boys." They jeered, with sarcasm worthy Dickens, At folks who "went to roost with chickens.' Opprobrious epithets they hurled: "Hysterical, phlegmatic, "Captious, complaining " of the world, Such were their words emphatic; And out of breath, their railing ends With this: " a heaviness to their friends.
To stop the whistle and the music Is easy, we concede; But though the shouts made very few sick, Those few their slumber need; And no injunction could suppress Those screams and yells, or make them less. "Bottom " might mitigate his roar To tones of nightingale; But if one lets his fancy soar He knows that he must fail, Except by gags or opiate diet, To keep a mob of children quiet.*
- Public picnics and open-air dances are not nui
sances per sc. "When conducted with decorum and circumspection, and remote from public thor oughfares," they are permissible. So an ordinance forbidding them was held invalid (Village of Des Plaines v. Poyer, 123 Illinois, 348). But it was conceded that •• the manner of conducting them may be productive of annoyance and injury to the pub lic." The English courts in certain circumstances regard a brass band and fireworks as a nuisance (Walker v. Brewster, 5 Eq. 25); and so a circus (Inchbald v. Robinson, 4 Ch. 388); and so even a dancing-school (Sturges v. Bridgman, 11 Ch. Div. 852); and a singing and instrumental music school (Christie v. Davie [1893], I Ch. 316).
Canadian Notions. — In the October number of the excellent "Canadian Law Journal" we find two things, in the form of comments on Lord Chief-Justice Russell's recent address at Saratoga, that make us smile. First, after quoting his Lord ship's aspiration for lasting amity and peace between England and the United States, the "Journal" re marks : " This end will be facilitated, as far as Can adians are concerned, by the frank recognition by our neighbors of the fact that we are here on this continent to stay, not as a part of the United States, but to fulfil our destiny as a separate nationality, and that all schemes to coerce the political sentiment of the country in favor of annexation, while they are certain to obstruct free and friendly intercourse, are S03
