eterate habit of litigation. Every one remembers the
immortal description of Dandle Dinmont's importunate application to
Lawyer Pleydell to manage his "bit lawsuit," till at length Pleydell
consents to help him to ruin himself, on the ground that Dandle may fall
into worse hands. It seems this is a scene which has many parallels in
Germany. The farmer's lawsuit is his point of honor; and he will carry
it through, though he knows from the very first day that he shall get
nothing by it. The litigious peasant piques himself, like Mr.
Saddletree, on his knowledge of the law, and this vanity is the chief
impulse to many a lawsuit. To the mind of the peasant, law presents
itself as the "custom of the country," and it is his pride to be versed
in all customs. _Custom with him holds the place of sentiment_, _of
theory_, _and in many cases of affection_. Riehl justly urges the
importance of simplifying law proceedings, so as to cut off this vanity
at its source, and also of encouraging, by every possible means, the
practice of arbitration.

The peasant never begins his lawsuit in summer, for the same reason that
he does not make love and marry in summer--because he has no time for
that sort of thing. Anything is easier to him than to move out of his
habitual course, and he is attached even to his privations. Some years
ago a peasant youth, out of the poorest and remotest region of the
Westerwald, was enlisted as a recruit, at Weilburg in Nassau. The lad,
having never in his life slept in a bed, when he had got into one for the
first time began to cry like a child; and he deserted twice because he
could not reconcile himself to sleeping in a bed, and to the "fine" life
of the barracks: he was homesick at the thought of his accustomed poverty
and his thatched hut. A strong contrast, this, with the feeling of the
poor in towns, who would be far enough from deserting because their
condition was too much improved! The genuine peasant is never ashamed of
his rank and calling; he is rather inclined to look down on every one who
does not wear a smock frock, and thinks a man who has the manners of the
gentry is likely to be rather windy and unsubstantial. In some places,
even in French districts, this feeling is strongly symbolized by the
practice of the peasantry, on certain festival days, to dress the images
of the saints in peasant's clothing. History tells us of all kinds of
peasant insurrections, the object of which was