Counsel for Pros. By no means. It is easily cured. We’ll send the constable with a Mandamus to his Grace’s kennel.
Pris. Counsel. They are fox hounds. Not the same species; therefore not his equals. I do not object to the harriers, nor to a tales de circumstantibus.
Counsel for Pros. That’s artful, brother, but it won’t take. I smoke your intention of garbling a jury. You know the harriers will be partial, and acquit your client at any rate. Neither will we have any thing to do with your tales.
Mat. No—no—you say right. I hate your tales and tale-bearers. They are a rascally pack altogether.
Counsel for Pros. Besides, the statute gives your worships ample jurisdiction in this case; and if it did not give it, your worships know how to take it, because the law says, boni est judicis ampliare jurisdictionem.
Pris. Counsel. Then—I demur for irregularity. The prisoner is a dog, and cannot be triable as a man—ergo, not within the intent of the statute.
Counsel for Pros. That’s a poor subterfuge. If the statute respects a man, (a fortiori) it will affect a dog.
Ponser. You are certainly right. For when I was in the Turkish dominions, I saw an Hebrew Jew put to death for killing a dog, although dog was the aggressor.
Counsel for Pros. A case in point, please your worship. And a very curious and learned one it is. And the plain induction from it is this, that the Jew (who I take for granted was a man) being put to death for killing dog, it follows that said dog was as respectable a person, and of equal rank in society with the said Jew; and therefore—ergo—and moreover—That, said dog, so slain, was, to all and every purpose of legal inference and intendment, neither more nor less than—a man.