I was told by 'friends', that more than one lady had observed, that an old bachelor like myself cared nothing about dragons, and therefore it was just like my selfishness to seek to deprive them of their innocent pleasures and amusements.
No one would listen to my plea of self-defence; no one regarded my losses; I was not looked upon as a sufferer; and instead of sympathy received only abuse.
A summons being issued against Hannibal, he appeared before the tribunal of two of Her Majesty's Justices of the Peace, accused of a grave misdemeanour.
As every one knew that I was the instigator of the offence, I magnanimously avowed the fact, and was requested to stand in the place of Hannibal.
In vain, however, did I use every argument to justify the deed. The chief magistrate reminded me that I had been fully advised to proceed only according to law, under the Act, 2 Wm. IV. No. 2, amended (!!) by 4 Wm. IV. No. 5; by either of which I was fully authorized to seize and impound all trespassers—a limit and license that included dragons.
My defence was allowed to be a sensible and rational one; but the law was opposed to it, and their worships were bound by oath to prefer the law to common sense. (I doubted myself whether dragons came within the Law, but the Justices decided that they were poundable animals.) This being the case, I was under the necessity of paying the sum of ten shillings damages, and as many more for costs and expenses incurred by the bailiff, in travelling up and down his bailiwick in search of the body of John Hannibal Muckthorne (whose body was all the time sitting quietly in my kitchen)—rather than go to Fremantle gaol for a month, and help to draw stones about the streets in a large cart.
I need scarcely add, that I returned home a wiser and sadder man. "Hannibal," said I, "the Spirit of the Age in this colony is opposed to territorial and to social improvement. My grounds must still remain a barren waste. Instead of embowering myself in fertility, as I had intended; instead of creating new beauties which should transfuse fresh charms into the minds of the peripatetics of Perth; I must continue to live in a desert, and shall doubtless soon subside into an ascetic recluse. Hannibal! turn the horses into the garden, and let them trample over the beds."
Thus have I reluctantly shown the reader that the dark ages still cast their shadows over the city of Perth;—the dawn of a high state of civilization is still wanting there, where man continues defenceless from the ravages of noxious monsters peculiar to an early and uncivilized era.*
[footnote] *The laws which colonists make for themselves are often as absurd as any that the Imperial Parliament thinks proper to enact for them. To this day, the only legal remedy (except an action and a shilling damages) against the winged and long-clawed nuisances that destroy the hopes and break the heart of the horticulturist, is to impound them.