1882.] HOME MANUFACTURES. 209 



or not? Our tlieorieB of justice and the practice of our courts 

 often disagree. One case spread thin by the newspapers, amuses 

 many people. Possibly that is a gain. Who will rise and explain 

 the law so that people shall confide in it? Ordinary honest men 

 sometimes appear more afraid of our courts than rogues do. A 

 flood washed forty cords of my father's wood fifty rods down the 

 stream and piled it upon his neighbor's land, who immediately 

 claimed the wood. My father calculated that a law suit would 

 cost as much as the wood was worth, and so let the wood go. 

 Did his fear of the courts cheat them out of one righteous chance 

 of getting a living, and by so much leave them exposed to un- 

 righteous legal temptations? 



My neighbors elected me grand juror one year, but the two 

 complaints which came to my ears during my official term were so 

 ridiculous, that I laughed them out of countenance. Then I 

 wasn't elected grand juror any more. One neighbor told me I 

 didn't scare up business enough for the courts. Perhaps so; but 

 I didn't know, and who does know, what school is appointed to 

 pierce the darkness as to legal matters in these dai"k ages? Some- 

 times I get to thinking that we spent too much of our capital in 

 the State House, leaving too little means afloat for the common 

 people to get justice — like a farmer who builds a mighty barn, 

 which so exhausts his cash that he cannot afiiord a decent shelter 

 for himself. 



Is it true, as some say, that the law is only for the strong? 

 During our recent troubles, plenty of people told us what a fearful 

 thing it was to go to law, but it must be a more fearful thing 

 finally for the State, if upright men grow in dread of its statutes. 

 If the law is, as some say, a lottery, even then there must be an occa- 

 sional prize drawn, or no one will take a venture in it. My own 

 opinion is, that human law is, or should be a normal development 

 from natural law, as mechanics is a natural growth out of agri- 

 culture; and that if either development grows wrong, it is because 

 farmers and mechanics do not take their due share in the trouble 

 of setting it in order. 



Last spring when this flowage business was first sprung on us, 

 I was away in the village at work as hard as ever I could. The 

 powers of evil hke those of good, are always in sympathy. 

 "While we were in dread of water at one end of the farm, we 

 were in mortal terror of fire at the other. The evil spirits 

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