TWO INCHES OF LAND.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 10093, 7 September 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

TWO INCHES OF LAND.

A caw which was remarkable for the excessive smallness of the matter in dispute recently oooupied two oounsel and the full Oonrt of New South Wales for some time. The affair arose oat of the inability of the two contending parties to decide who should have a strip of land averaging two inohes in width and about fifty feet in length. A Mrs Fleay owns a piece of land fronting Elizabeth-street, Sydney, and running baok towardsOaetlereagh street, and wiihed to bring it under the Heal Property Act. One Franois Fox, however, entered a caveat against her being granted a certificate in respect to a portion of the land, the said portion having a width at one end of 2£ Inohes and at the other end of 1| inches, and Mrs Fleay accordingly applied for au order oal]ifeg upo,n him \o state- a oase for the desouion of. the.Oonrt The Chief Juatioe very naturally expressed his opinion, at the opening of the ease, •bout the time of the Court being taken up in dealing with soon a minute fragment of real estate, but the counsel on either side were unable to arrive at an amioable understanding whereby the matter might be settled, and the case prooeeded, not, however without further expostulation from the Court. It was suggested by one of the Judges that the contestants should "toss up" for the piece in dispute. The idea did not, apparently commend itself to the disputants. Later on a piece of paper was help vp — a sheet of foolsoan— and the Judge deprecated the publio time being oooupied in fighting over a pieoe of land which was not much larger in superficial area than the paper, and was not worth the amount of the barristers' briefs. But the blood' of the litigants was up, they T w.ere-,ffghting not so much for the land as the principle, and the case went on with much citing of legal authorities. Eventually. Mrs Flesj was ordered to amend' her application, and the oase, was thai temporarily, hang up. 87 the time the winning party gets,. that two ( inches strip of ground it will be about thr moat expensive piece of land in Sydney — and, we should think, about as uselesg as costly.