re before, and sometimes they promptly died. All the leeches
were prosecuted at Lausanne in 1451. A few selected representatives
were brought into court, tried, convicted and ordered to depart within
a fixed period. Maybe they didn't fully grasp their obligations or
perhaps were just acting contemptuously, but they didn't depart and so
were promptly exorcised. Immediately they began to die off and before
long there were none left in the country."

"I know some rats and mice I'd like to have exorcised," mused Tutt.

"At Autun in the fifteenth century the rats won their case," said Mr.
Tutt.

"Who got 'em off?" asked Tutt.

"M. Chassensee, the advocate appointed to defend them. They had been a
great nuisance and were ordered to appear in court. But none of them
turned up. M. Chassensee therefore argued that a default should not be
taken because _all_ the rats had been summoned, and some were either so
young or so old and decrepit that they needed more time. The court
thereupon granted him an extension. However, they didn't arrive on the
day set, and this time their lawyer claimed that they were under duress
and restrained by bodily fear--of the townspeople's cats. That all these
cats, therefore should first be bound over to keep the peace! The court
admitted the reasonableness of this, but the townsfolk refused to be
responsible for their cats and the judge dismissed the case!"

"What did Chassensee get out of it?" inquired Tutt.

"There is no record of who paid him or what was his fee."

"He was a pretty slick lawyer," observed Tutt. "Did they ever try
birds?"

"Oh, yes!" answered Mr. Tutt. "They tried a cock at Basel in 1474--for
the crime of laying an egg."

"Why was that a crime?" asked Tutt. "I should call it a _tour de
force_."

"Be that as it may," said his partner, "from a cock's egg is hatched the
cockatrice, or basilisk, the glance of whose eye turns the beholder to
stone. Therefore they tried the cock, found him guilty and burned him
and his egg together at the stake. That is why cocks don't lay eggs
now."

"I'm glad to know that," said Tutt. "When did they give up trying
animals?"

"Nearly two hundred years ago," answered Mr. Tutt. "But for some time
after that they continued to try inanimate objects for causing injury to
people. I've heard they tried one of the first locomotives that ran over
a man and declared it forfeit to the crown as a deodand."

"I wonder if you couldn't get 'em to try A