94 FABLES. 



to prevent this rascally Wolf from robbing us of 

 the whole. 



APPLICATION. 



WHEN people go to law about an uncertain title, 

 and have spent the value of their whole estate in 

 the contest, nothing is more common than to find 

 that some unprincipled attorney has secured the 

 object in dispute to himself. The very name of law 

 seems to imply equity and justice, and this is the 

 bait which has draw r n in many to their ruin. If we 

 would lay aside passion, prejudice, and folly, and 

 think calmly of the matter, \ve should find that 

 going to law is not the best way of deciding 

 differences about property ; it being, generally 

 speaking, much safer to trust to the arbitration of 

 two or three honest sensible neighbours, than at a 

 vast expense of money, time, and trouble, to run 

 through the tedious frivolous forms, with which, by 

 the artifices of greedy lawyers, a court of judicature 

 is contrived to be attended. Or if a case should 

 happen to be so intricate that a man of common 

 sense cannot distinguish w r ho has the best title, 

 how easy would it be to have the opinion of the 

 best counsel in the land, and agree to abide by his 

 decision. If it should appear dubious, even after 

 that, how much better w T ould it be to divide the 

 thing in dispute, rather than go to law, and hazard 

 the losing, not only of the whole, but costs and 

 damages into the bargain! 



