Eight Years' Squabbling Over $7 50

From the New Haven Palladium. The oase of Hotchkiss v$. Hoey, whioh haa been in court for nearly eight years, has reached the Supreuie Court. The smallness of the sum involved - f7 50 - and the principie embodied in the suit makes its appearance in the highest couit of the State a subject of considerable comraent. Let us relate briefly the course of the litigation. Ou Janury 29, 1867, on the public highway leading trom Cheshire to Waterbury, the plaintiff was driving a sleigh containing a pleasure party, and drawn by six horses, when the defendant appeared before hira with a onehorse sleigh - comparatively no team at all - and persisted in walking his horse, The plaintiff desired the defendant to turn out so that his pleasure party might pass, but he was implacable. For two long, dreary miles, the plaintiff alleges, the onehorse sleigh was " unnecessarily, wrongfully and unlawfully in a slow walk immediately forward of the plaintiff's team." It was uot until George Hine's house was reached that the defendant allowed the plaintiff to pass. The feeling8 of the plaintiff at the time can be imagined, but it is difficult to conceive of a delibérate journey to a lawyer's office and an overhauling of the statute books. " An act oorncerning the driving of carriages and the management of steaniboats" was found. The penalty for a violation of the statute is f 7 50, half to the town in which the violation is done and half to the informer. A suit was at once brought before a justice, and Mr. Hotchkiss got his $3 75 - that is, he got a judgment for that amount. The case was then taken to the Superior Court, on an appeal, and from thence to the Supreme Court by the plaintiff, because the defendaut's deaiurrer that the declaration was insufficient was sustained. Eight years of litigation for $7 50 has cost soniebody sometbing for counsel fees, and will cost somebody more before the climax is reached.