THE most litigious fellow I ever knew, was a Welshman, named Bones. He had got possession, by some means, of a bit of waste ground behind a public-house in Hogwash Street. Adjoining this land was a yard belonging to the parish of St. Jeremiah, which the Parish Trustees were fencing in with a wall. Bones alleged that one corner of their wall was advanced about ten inches on his ground, and as they declined to remove it back, he kicked down the brick-work before the mortar was dry. The Trustees having satisfied themselves that they were not only within their boundary, but that they had left Bones some feet of the parish land to boot, built up the wall again. Bones kicked it down again.

The Trustees put it up a third time, under the protection of a policeman. The inexorable Bones, in spite of the awful presence of this functionary, not only kicked down the wall again, but kicked the brick-layers into the bargain. This was too much, and Bones was marched off to Guildhall for assaulting the brick-layers. The magistrate rather pooh-poohed the complaint, but bound over Bones to keep the peace. The causa belli, the wall, was re-edified a fourth time; but when the Trustees revisited the place next morning, it was again in ruins! While they were in consultation upon this last insult, they were politely waited on by an attorney’s clerk, who served them all with “writs” in an action of trespass, at the suit of Bones, for encroaching on his land.

Thus war was declared about a piece of dirty land literally not so big as a door-step, and the whole fee-simple of which would not sell for a shilling. The Trustees, however, thought they ought not to give up the rights of the parish to the obstinacy of a perverse fellow, like Bones, and resolved to indict Bones for assaulting the workmen. Accordingly, the action and the indictment went on together.

The action was tried first, and as the evidence clearly showed the Trustees had kept within their own boundary, they got the verdict. Bones moved for a new trial; that failed. The Trustees now thought they would let the matter rest, as it had cost the parish about one hundred and fifty pounds, and they supposed Bones had had enough of it. But they had mistaken their man. He brought a writ of error in the action, which carried the cause into the Exchequer Court, and tied it up nearly two years, and in the meantime he forced them nolens volens to try the indictment. When the trial came on, the judge said, that as the whole question had been decided in the action, there was no occasion for any further proceedings, and therefore the Defendant had better be acquitted, and so make an end of it.

Accordingly, Bones was acquitted; and the very next thing Bones did was to sue the Trustees in a new action, for maliciously instituting the indictment against him without reasonable cause! The new action went on to trial; and it being proved that one of the Trustees had been overheard to say that they would punish him; this was taken as evidence of malice, and Bones got a verdict for forty shillings damages besides all the costs. Elated with this victory, Bones pushed on his old action in the Exchequer Chamber to a hearing, but the Court affirmed the judgment against him, without hearing the Trustees’ counsel.

The Trustees were now sick of the very name of Bones, which had become a sort of bugbear, so that if a Trustee met a friend in the street he would be greeted with an inquiry after the health of his friend, Mr. Bones. They would have gladly let the whole matter drop into oblivion, but Jupiter and Bones had determined otherwise; for the indomitable Briton brought a Writ of Error in the House of Lords, on the judgment of the Exchequer Chamber. The unhappy Trustees had caught a Tartar, and follow him into the Lords they must. Accordingly, after another year or two’s delay, the case came on in the Lords. Their Lordships pronounced it the most trumpery Writ of Error they had ever seen, and again affirmed the judgment, with costs, against Bones. The Trustees now taxed their costs, and found that they had spent not less than five hundred pounds in defending their claims to a bit of ground that was not of the value of an old shoe. But, then, Bones was condemned to pay the costs. True—so they issued execution against Bones; caught him, after some trouble, and locked him up in jail. The next week, Bones petitioned the Insolvent Court, got out of prison, and, on examination of his schedule, his effects appeared to be £0 0s. 0d.! Bones had, in fact, been fighting the Trustees on credit for the last three years; for his own attorney was put down as a creditor to a large amount, which was the only satisfaction the Trustees obtained from perusing his schedule.

They were now obliged to have recourse to the Parish funds to pay their own law expenses, and were consoling themselves with the reflection that these did not come out of their own pockets—when they received the usual notification that a Bill in Chancery had been filed against them, at Mr. Bones’s suit, to overhaul their accounts with the parish, and prevent the misapplication of the Parish money to the payment of their law costs! This was the climax. And being myself a disciple of Coke, I have heard nothing further of it; being unwilling, as well perhaps as unqualified, to follow the case into the labyrinthic vaults of the Court of Chancery. The catastrophe, if this were a tale, could hardly be mended—so the true story may end here.