,
and the constable should pay the costs.

This decision, being straightway made known, diffused general joy
throughout New Amsterdam, for the people immediately perceived that they
had a very wise and equitable magistrate to rule over them. But its
happiest effect was that not another lawsuit took place throughout the
whole of his administration; and the office of constable fell into such
decay that there was not one of those losel scouts known in the province
for many years. I am the more particular in dwelling on this
transaction, not only because I deem it one of the most sage and
righteous judgments on record, and well worthy the attention of modern
magistrates, but because it was a miraculous event in the history of the
renowned Wouter--being the only time he was ever known to come to a
decision in the whole course of his life.

WILHELMUS KIEFT

As some sleek ox, sunk in the rich repose of a clover field, dozing and
chewing the cud, will bear repeated blows before it raises itself, so
the province of Nieuw Nederlandts, having waxed fat under the drowsy
reign of the Doubter, needed cuffs and kicks to rouse it into action.
The reader will now witness the manner in which a peaceful community
advances toward a state of war; which is apt to be like the approach of
a horse to a drum, with much prancing and little progress, and too often
with the wrong end foremost.

Wilhelmus Kieft, who in 1634 ascended the gubernatorial chair (to borrow
a favorite though clumsy appellation of modern phraseologists), was of a
lofty descent, his father being inspector of windmills in the ancient
town of Saardam; and our hero, we are told, when a boy, made very
curious investigations into the nature and operations of these machines,
which was one reason why he afterward came to be so ingenious a
Governor. His name, according to the most authentic etymologists, was a
corruption of Kyver--that is to say, a _wrangler_ or _scolder_, and
expressed the characteristic of his family, which, for nearly two
centuries, have kept the windy town of Saardam in hot water and produced
more tartars and brimstones than any ten families in the place; and so
truly did he inherit this family peculiarity, that he had not been a
year in the government of the province before he was universally
denominated William the Testy. His appearance answered to his name. He
was a brisk, wiry, waspish little old gentleman, such a one as may now
and then be seen stump