A legal point has been raised as to whether a woman who, while attempting to kill a wasp, breaks her neighbour's window is liable for damages. Counsel is understood to have expressed the view that, if the defendant had broken plaintiff's window while trespassing through the same in pursuit of the wasp, or had failed to give the wasp a reasonable opportunity of departing peaceably, or if it could be shown that the wasp had not previously exhibited a ferocious disposition, then judgment must be for the plaintiff.
"Here in a circular letter from the Home Office we find the sentence: 'The increase in the number of juvenile offenders is mainly caused by an increase of nearly 50 per cent. in cases of larceny.' In ordinary human language this only means that nearly twice as many children were caught thieving as in the year before. But it would be all that an official's place was worth to say so."
The Nation.
Certainly it would, if his duties required a knowledge of elementary arithmetic.