A law passed by the Grand Assembly held at James City, Virginia, in March, 1662, was designed for the purpose of trying to prevent women from talking to excess. The law read:
"Whereas many babbling women slander and scandalize their neighbors, for which their poor husbands are often involved in chargeable and vexatious suits, and cast in great damages: Be it therefore enacted that in actions of slander, occasioned by the wife, after judgment passed for the damages, the woman shall be punished by ducking; and if the slander be so enormous as to be adjudged at greater damages than five hundred pounds of tobacco, then the woman to suffer a ducking for each five hundred pounds of tobacco adjudged against the husband, if he refuses to pay the tobacco."
In contrast with this is a solemn admission made by Vice-Chancellor Stevenson, in Jersey City, last December. The case was that of a man who besought the court to have his wife restrained from going to his place of business during business hours and demanding that he give her money. The New Jersey jurist said:
"This man seeks to enjoin his wife's tongue. From time immemorial men have tried to restrain woman's tongue, and have failed."
The suit was dismissed.
CHESS KING RULES IN QUAINT GERMAN TOWN.
CHILDREN TAKE BOARDS TO SCHOOL
In No Other Part of the World Is the
Game Taken So Seriously as It
Is in Strohbeck.
The German town of Ströhbeck is ruled by two kings—one red and one white. Each has his queen and his attendant knights and bishops, his castles, and his—pawns. In other words, the game of chess is master in Ströhbeck.
It appears that in the year 1011 a.d. a certain Count Gunnelin was shut up in the tower prison at Ströhbeck, and, as there was nothing else to do, he chalked out a chess-board on the floor and made some rough pieces.