One Art ton Concerned Rooster That Attacked Child 1*1 ay in* in Street The great American game of “go- j ing to law” is sometimes productive of extraordinary results. Court tidal? may bo tragic dramatic, melodrama tic, or—as for the most part they are—profoundly usual. Rut the ele ment of comedy may bo present. It often is, savs a writer in the Boston Herald. Odil cases, puecr cases, ppcu’rr cases, downright funny cases, are in termingled on the record with those of the customary type. In fact, it i: thus recurrent possibility that pre vents jurors, court clerks and juries from becoming out-andout m snn thropists. with a rooted and abiding distrust in the ability of the human race to direct its own nffa.rs. Court officials whose memory goes back through the vears recalls nuni-; hers of these “freak” rasps and there are plenty of yellowed old clippings preserved in scrapbooks, that have rescued from the limbo of oblivion the details of su.ts whosp oddities have aroused jaded public interest and caused a smile to illuminate the face of even the dignified justice who sits upon the bench. From $300,000,000 to 14 cents ,s» a big drop yet one may find these sums set down as damages claimed in actions in local courts. In the 14 cent case the plaintiff said that 2 cents of this amount was due him for postage expended in informing the defendants to the amount of their in debtedness to him. On the other hand, the case of the estate of Olea Bull Vaughan, of West Lebanon, Me., against the New Haven road, to recover $300,000,000, which it was alleged had been miss spent by the directors, heard in 1924, was the largest ever filed in Massachusetts. The 14-eent su.t, spoken of above was not the smallest on record. Wil liam F. Donovan, clerk of the civil division of the Boston municipal court, told The Herakl man that a suit of 10 cents had that distinction. If, was a contract action, said Mr, Donovan, reminiscently, “filed about 30 years ago and brought by an attorney against the Boston and Maine Railroad. It seems that the plaintiff had paid a cash fare on the train and had been given a rebate slip by the conductor. He waited too long before attempting to cash the slip, ar it expired. The company re fused to honor it. and the man sued for 10 cents. This is t'-..> smallest suit ever recorded here. “That suit is rather ancierft his tory. In my time the smallest was filed by a local laundry for a bill of $1.03. The defendants defaulted the case and judgiwunt was given for the amount with cost. Gloves Shrunk, She Sued “Another peculiar case I remember was the spit brought by a young lady, whose father was a lawyer, against a local department store for $1.75, which she claimed she had paid for a pair of gloves advertised and guaranteed not to shrink. She had been assured, she stated, that the glove* could be washed without their shrinking, but on washing them, she claimed, they shrank to such nn extent that she ”-as un..nie to get them on." Because he spelled the word “dau ghter” incorrectly as "duaghter’ in cutting it on the headstone for the grave of his customers child a Bos ton monument worker lost his suit to recover $30 as a balance due on the pr.ee of a stone. The headstone now stands in a cemetery in Doburn, with the word “daughter’ misspelled and a chip broken from one edge. At the trial the cutter at first denied that the word had been misspelled, then admitted that it was, bpWried to as sure the jury that he could correct the spelling and make the headstone “all right” for only $1.80 additional. The jury apparently did not believe him. A *100,000 suit for the loss of a woman’s eye from the shaft of n de scending skyrocket on a Fourth of July, brought aga.nst the town of Brookline and two fireworks compan ies, occupied the attention of an au ditor at the Suffolk county court house in 1913. The woman was riding jin an auto mobile wh.ch swung in by the Cy press street playground in Brookline during the evening of July 4, 1908. The occupants of the car were watch ing the fireworks display. Through the darkness the shaft of a rocket dropped, striking the woman in the eyes as the sat gaz.ng upward, and blinding her. The suit was eventual ly compromised. A rooster’s peck was appraised at $500, in the Worcester Superior court a few days ago. The little vic tim of the rooster, a boy of 5, never received any benef.t from the money as he was killed by failing from a piazza at him home after the suit was instituted. His father claimed that the rooster a bird of fighting breed, attacked the boy on the street in Worcester, one day in August. 1912, and pecked him in the right eye, inflictmg such Injuries t***t the eye had to be re moved. He sued in his behalf, and also for the boy; the jury brought in a verdict of $240 for the estate of of the victim, and $260 fc" the fatti er. The record is silent as to what became of the rooster. The fowl ha undoubtedly expiated his crime to the Shot in Church Flay A very unusual case was tried in the Suffolk Superior Court in March 192'!. when a woman brought su.t against a Roxburv church for $20. 000 on the grounds of the “conscious suffering anil death” of her daughter caused, it was alleged by the negli gence of the defendant. On the night of December 5, pre viously, the victim a girl of 15. was .Vo j?i tb" breast during rehears al of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” as Christmas entertainment, and died soon afterward in a hospital. The shot was fired by a young man, a performer in the play, who hod been allotted a part which called for the use of a revolver. The girl was seat ed at a piano and the young man was exam.ning th° nistol, which was dis charged, the bullet striking the pian ist. The actor was exonerated by the grand jury and a finding of “neith er party was entered in the damage suit. A Boston man told Judge Sheednn, in the Munic.pal Court one day in January, 1924. that his interior works had been seriously damaged by a piece of glass while lie was eating baked beans in a Washington street restaurant some t.mo previously. He said the glass was in the beans ara he whs not aware that he had swal lowedeit until it began to get in its fine work upon the l'ning of his stom pch. He sought $900 damages frofn the restaurant pronr.etor. The case was settled for a $5 bill. The proprietor of a Somerville bake-shop brought suit in the Middle sex Superior Court in 1917 against h's landlord because the latter had painted a huge “To Let" s.gn across the window of hia shop. The baker declared that the land lord came into his place of business and painted the objectionable words, with the legend ’“possession given m 24 hours’ on the glass. A big crowd collected and os the result of the dis turbance the plaintiff said his credit had been injured to the extent of $10,000, me landlord repi e