The Law of the Land. the passions of the hour, the press and the public have sometimes indulged in criticism that the existing facts and the calm con clusions of history will not sustain. Even the Supreme Court of the United States has not escaped censure under like circumstances. In such a time, it is a matter of special
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interest and pride to Kentuckians to review the history of a Court that from its organi zation has contained some of the ablest jur ists of the land. The Court of Appeals of Kentucky has been the chief pride of a State that in all departments of government has given to the world some of its most dis tinguished statesmen.
THE LAW OF THE LAND. XIII.
TORTS OF THE TONGUE. BY WM. ARCH. McCLEAN. DAILY man arises in the morning, goes to work and carelessly, thoughtlessly, accidentally and deliberately commits torts, and before the setting of the sun is within the jurisdiction of the law of the land for that which he hath done. It is one of the most difficult things for a man to reach his grave without either himself, or his man ser vant, or his maid servant, or his ox or his dog having committed a wrong for which he may be held to answer in the courts. It would seem as though mankind had entered into a conspiracy in the matter in order to give employment to the legal profession. One may be the most peaceable of men, yet this very characteristic may be the cause of his keeping an unruly ox that should have been led to the slaughter while his flesh was palatable, and that ox possesses a well known habit of goring humanity or trespassing in other people's closes. Or he may have been harboring a worthless yellow dog, who insists upon affectionately biting people. Or he may have been rearing children who are with out his taste for peacefulness, and who reck lessly do wrongs to other inhabitants of the world. Or he may have been hiring servants
who in the discharge of their duties do the things they are told to do in ways their em ployer never conceived of so that wrongs are done for which the latter may be held to an swer. The peaceable citizen accepts his fate as inevitable and at the end hands in his resignation without any mental reservation for a state where he may be free from an swering for the torts of other people and beasts. The reverse is quite as true that it is just as difficult to go through life without having some one else wrong you. Your own munic ipality may wrong you with the obstruction that is placed in your, path for you to stum ble over of a night, or by a pitfall that is dug for your feet, of which you are given no notice. Your neighbor's ox gores you and his dog sends you off for Pasteur's treatment. Others trespass upon your lands, your crops, your orchards and your hencoops. You are imprisoned without a cause, you are perse cuted, your wife's affections are alienated and divers other innumerable torts are done unto you. This condition may be due to the fact that there are so many of us on top of the earth
