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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



the defendant did or did not, from time to time, and 

 at all times when and as often as need or occasion re- 

 quired, well and sufficiently repair, amend, uphold, 

 sustain, preserve, and keep in good and tenantable re- 

 pair, the said demised messuage, farmhouse, and the 

 several barns, stables, granaries, outhouses, gates, 

 stiles, posts, rails, and fences thereto belonging ; and 

 whether he did or did not, during the said term, suffer 

 or permit the said premises, &c , to be or continue 

 ruinous, prostrate, fallen down, or in decay, in bad 

 order, or repair, for want of needful or necessary re- 

 pairing, amending, upholding, sustaining, preserving, 

 or keeping in good and tenantable repair as alleged. 

 3rdly. Whether the defendant did or did not, at the 

 end or expiration of the said term, yield up into the 

 hands of the plaintiff, and to the assigns of the said 

 John Hotchkiss, the said farmhouse and premises, &c., 

 in such good and tenantable repair as aforesaid ; and 

 whether he did or did not refuse so to do, as alleged. 

 4thly. Whether the defendant did or did not, at every 

 time of his cutting, plaishing, and new-making the 

 said hedges of the said demised lands and premises, 

 cleanf-e, and scour up the ditches belonghig to such 

 hedges as aforesaid, and to the hedgerows where ditches 

 had, before the making of the said demise, been for- 

 merly made, and especially all the outside ditches ; 

 and whether he did or did not neglect or- refuse so to 

 do, as alleged." In the April of last year, following 

 the original specification, Mr. Overman is served with 

 a writ, and enters an appearance to defend an action. 

 The trial is set down for the summer assizes at Hert- 

 ford, when it was made a remanct. Then it is removed 

 to the Court of Common Pleas, Westminster, 

 is part heard, and a number of witnesses 

 examined, with Mr. Bovill, Q.C., and Mr. Garth for 

 the plaintiff, and Mr. Edwin James, Q.C., Mr. Haw- 

 kins, Q.C., and Mr. Codd for the defendant, all duly in- 

 structed by the several solicitors, of course. At length, 

 however, after much investigation and pleading and 

 examining and so forth, Lord Chief Justice Erie inter- 

 poses, and suggests that the case be settled by 

 arbitration ; and this is agreed to accordingly. Mr. 

 Henry Trethewy, of Silsoe, the agent to the De 

 Grey property, and a gentleman of great expe- 

 rience and practical ability is selected to finally decide 

 these unpleasant and expensive differences; and the 

 third, and as we hope the last time of asking, was 

 heard before him at Luton, in January. Here the 

 QC.'s were dispensed with; but Mr. Bedford, and 

 Mr. Smith, of Richmond, Mrs. Hosier's family soli- 

 citor, went to show how the barns, stables, gates, and 

 stiles were not kept in tenantable repair, and how the 

 hedges were not cut and plaished, nor the ditches 

 cleaned and scoured, all according to that " said" in- 

 telligible language m which the law delights, and on 

 which the issues were joined. On the contrary, Mr. 

 Day, of Hemel Hempstead, maintained that the 

 premises were in repair, that the hedges were cut, the 

 ditches scoured, and so forth. And for three days did 

 Mr. Trethewy sit in state at the George Hotel. For 

 three days were more than thirty witnesses living at the 

 suit Rosier and Overman in the pleasant little town of 

 Luton. For three days did some of the first agricul- 

 turists in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, "including 

 some of his Grace the Duke of Bedford's tenants, so 

 famed for their high farming," crowd the room. And 

 for three days did land-valuers and farmers and Wailiffs 

 and labourers and neighbours and the present tenant 

 and the past tenant tell all they knew of Flamsteadbury 

 Farm, and how Mr. Overman left it. Then the arbi- 

 trator took the evidence home with him; to weigh care- 

 fully over, how much this going to Hertford Assizes ; 

 and then going on to the Court of Common Pleas, with 

 the Q.C.'s, and the Lord Chief Justice ; and then 



coming back to Luton again — how much this trouble 

 and expense, and wear and tear of mind and body were 

 really worth? How much discredit these untenable 

 premises and unshorn hedges and dirty ditches did to 

 the name of Overman? Silence in the Court: — "I, the 

 said arbitrator, having taken upon myself the burthen 

 of this reference, and having heard and duly weighed 

 and considered the several allegations of the said par- 

 ties, and the evidence produced by them respectively, 

 of and concerning the matters in difference, so referred 

 to me as aforesaid. Do make and publish this my 

 award in writing, of and concerning the matters so re- 

 ferred to me, and do hereby award, order, determine, 

 and direct in manner ioUowing, that is to say. As to 

 the issue firstly joined in this cause, I award and find 

 for the plaintiff ; and as to the issues secondly, thirdly, 

 and fourthly, joined in this cause, I award and find for 

 the defendant; and I direct and award that the verdict 

 which has been entered for the plaintiff be set aside, 

 and instead thereof a verdict be entered for the plaintiff 

 on the first issue, and for the defendant on the second, 

 third, and fourth issues. And as to the matters in dif- 

 ference between the parties other than those in the said 

 cause, I find and award that neither of them are en- 

 titled to any claim upon the other in respect of the 

 same. And 1 further award and direct the plaintiff and 

 defendant do each bear their own costs of the reference, 

 and that the costs of this my award shall be paid by 

 the plaintiff." This is, of course, a verdict in full for 

 the defendant ; the first point, asserting the execution 

 of the lease, being a mere matter of form, which was 

 at once admitted. The award, we believe, carries heavy 

 costs. 



We tell this story through, purposely, without 

 comment of our own. But surely there is something of a 

 moral and a warning, attached to it. If this be not al- 

 ready so apparent, let us enforce it by one further fact. 

 When the decision was known in Redbourne and Flam- 

 stead, the Parish Bells were set ringing ! 



THE MOLE-CATCHER.— Tlie common mole-catcher, 

 like the rat-catcher, belonga to a dubious class of persons, 

 who prefer a half-lazy life to the varied and honourable toils 

 of the farm-labourer. And yet the old proverb, suggesting 

 the pains to which idle people put themselves, has some illus- 

 tration in his career. As his occupation is confined to those 

 seasons when it does not materially interfere with the crops, 

 hia traps cannot be set for several months together, and the 

 frost of winter often prevents the pursuit of his calling or in- 

 terferes with its success. If, then, by any means he can eke 

 out a subsistence, he may cherish his indolence as he lists. 

 But let him obtain a job, and then truly it is no joke; for, 

 exclusive of the labour and delay in setting his traps, he fre- 

 quently walks more than twenty miles a day; and this, for 

 the most part, neither along good roads nor well-beaten paths, 

 but over hedge and ditch, from farm to farm, and from field to 

 field, on the lands of the owner or the occupier who contracts 

 with him to destroy the moles. It is singular that this work 

 should not be undertaken by persons living in the neighbour- 

 hood of the places where their services are sought. Yet, over 

 a considerable extent of Scotland, as well as Wales, the moles 

 are destroyed by catchers who belong to some of the northern 

 counties of England, They visit their employers at regular 

 periods of the year, when their appearance is anticipated by 

 the Scotch and Welsh farmers as ceitainly as the coming of 

 the Irish haymakers and reapers is in the meadows and corn- 

 fields of England. The war they carry on with the moles 

 almost amounts to one of extermination. The numbers that 

 have been annually slaughtered are enormous. Mr. Bell, the 

 eminent naturalist, states that Mr. Jackson, a very intelligent 

 molecatcher, who had fallowed the craft for thirty-five years, 

 had destroyed from forty to fifty thousand, — CasseWs Popu- 

 lar Natural History. 



