The Law's Delays

New Zealand Tablet, 23 August 1906, Page 9

The Law's Delays

' Fond of lawsuits, lit lie wealth , fond of doctors, little health. ' The Hist pail o[ tins old Spanish proverb finds a curious lllustiution in the following paragraph that has of late been gieetmg us with the smile of an out fucnd fiom half-a -dozen daily papers in New Ztaland. : — 'In the two villages of Luceian and Lanconque, in the Alpes-Man times, Fiance, June 1L was kept as a public holiday to celebrate (lie end of a great lawsuit which had kept the two villages divided since November 11, 1102. The question in dispute was the possession of a piece of land at Lova which each village claimed. Recently the court at Nice definitely settled the matUi by dividing the land equally between the villages. r l lie total cost of this lawsuit during the 444 yeais amounts to £HO,OOO, while the value of the land in dispute was about £400. The law papers which had accuinulattd were docketed in 1&56 parcels which weighed 16 tons, and were stored ia a large disused church.' Thirty thousand pounds and (presumably) four centuries of the customaiy bitterness* of Little Pemlleton feuds — and all for a paicel of mother earth worth