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Show j THE READER'S COURTROOM 1 Badgering a Widow ' By Will Bernard, LL.B. May a Creditor Badger A Debtor for His Money? A widow borrowed some money on her furniture, and then found nerself unable to keep up the payment. pay-ment. One morning, a man from the loan company came to her home and angrily demanded that k she pay up at once. If she didn't he threatened in surly tones, he A creditor got a judgment against a barber, and demanded among other things the barber's chair, striped pole, hat rack, hair tonic, and cuspidor! At a court hearing, the barber pleaded that such items were exempt from attachment because be-cause they were the "tools" he needed to carry on his trade. And the judge agreed with him. Ordering Order-ing the creditor to keep hands off these articles, the judge said that no self-respecting man would go to a barber who didn't have "the usual incidentals." How Strict May a Medium Be During a Seance? A spiritualistic medium invited a skeptical neighbor to a seance, so he could "see for himself" what happened. Soon after the lights went out, the neighbor felt the medium's me-dium's chair slowly moving! Instantly In-stantly he struck a match. The -in A. i-tew: i .... .' .---AWl would "go to court and take away your furniture." The widow; who f j" happened to be a very sensitive person, was so unnerved by the incident in-cident that she filed a damage suit against the collector for upsetting up-setting her. However, the court turned down her claim. The judge said that a creditor has a perfect right to demand his money and he needn't be too polite about it either! A man was killed in a bus crash, and his widow sued the bus company for damages. At the - trial, her lawyer worked himself up to a high emotional pitch. "This rich corporation," he Zried to the jury, "is trying to hornswoggle this poor widow out of her rights!" The corporation's attorney was so shocked by this language that he demanded a new trial. However the court refused his request. Tlie judge ruled that "Hornswoggle" , made sense to the average person, and was OK in court. spiritualist got so angry at this interruption in-terruption that he knocked the neighbor down on the floor and that was the end of the seance. Afterward, Af-terward, the neighbor sued the medium for damages. The latter claimed that he had a right to punish pun-ish anyone who disturbed the seance., se-ance., but the court held him liable anyhow. The judge pointed out that the neighbor had been invited for the purpose of seeing what happened hap-pened so he had a perfect right to strike a match and look! |