The Price of a Petty Grudge

There is a suit now on trial before Judge Jones in the District Court which is being tried for the fourth time, in which the costs amount to more than six times the sum in dispute, in which four lawyers are engaged and the legal atmosphere is not clear enough now to tell which of the disputants is entitled to the sheriff's office. On February 21st, 1884, Charles Gardner brought suit in Justice Hill's Court against a firm named Brush & Burt for a balance of $10 alleged to be due on an account. A number of witnesses were examined, and the depositions were taken in San Francisco. Then the costs began piling up. The case was appealed from the Justice's Court to the District Court. It was tried in the District Court on April 9, 1886. Afterward a new trial was granted and delay followed delay until yesterday, when it was the first case called at 1:30 o'clock in the afternoon. It was given to the jury late in the afternoon. The costs now amount to more than $300. The Chief Justice of the Territory, twelve jurymen, four lawyers, and a number of witnesses spent an entire afternoon hearing the case. Numerous questions of law were gravely argued, and gravely ruled upon. Eloquent addresses were made to the jury by the attorneys on both sides, who gesticulated quite as earnestly as on occasions of great moment, and their rhetorical periods were pointed, and gracefully and forcibly perspicuous. There were grave insinuations that one of the parties to the suit was a liar and a perjurer and that he ought to be in the penitentiary. And the jury yawned and rested their heads on their uplifted hands in just the same old way. Judge Jones reviewed the case and with apt brevity referred the whole matter to the twelve learned gentlemen composing the jury. Then the twelve gentlemen retired, and at last accounts were wrestling with the testimony. The sum involved, it will probably be remembered, was $10.