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and yet partly happy man, (for natives acquire a pas- 

 sion for litigation, just as Europeans do for drink or 

 gambling,) lo and behold, a second or special appeal 

 on some miserable quibble of law, evolved out of clum- 

 sily drawn statutes, and he is dragged away yet another 

 one, two, or three hundred miles to the provincial 

 capital, where, after wasting months, and spending all 

 he had with him or could borrow in fees to lawyers 

 and bribes to hangers-on of the courts, he, as likely as 

 not, finally loses his case. Constituted as our civil 

 courts are, the chances on each hearing do not pre- 

 ponderate largely in favour of real justice being done. 

 What exactly the chances are of this happy event 

 occurring three successive times in one case, I leave 

 those, who make " the odds " their study, to calculate. 

 Winning or losing, he often returns utterly demo- 

 ralised to his home ; he has heard all the pleadings ; 

 quibbles and fictions on his side, quibbles and fictions 

 on the other side ; and he has listened to many other 

 cases besides his own, and has been impressed with the 

 fact that, on the whole, dishonesty is the best policy, 

 and henceforth this conviction shapes his dealings with 

 his banker and his neighbours. His banker on his 

 part is in no way behind his debtor ; indeed, having 

 necessarily more to do with the courts, he earlier, as 

 a rule, became a convert to the gospel of fraud ; and 

 the temptation to him was immense, for lands are 

 saleable now, and the impossible rates of old bonds 

 entered as a matter of form, when no one dreamt of 

 repaying capital, are now enforcible, and the principal 

 can be recovered too, and every landholder of every 

 degree can be sold up out of house and home. 



