FOR AND AGAINST

The story of the gentleman who, on February 25, 1922, received a horse kick at the Enghien racecourse weigh-in is another beautiful legal story. Le Petit Parisien told it in its legal chronicle.

So, thirty-three months ago, this unfortunate sportsman had his jaw broken by an untimely kick from a thoroughbred. It was clearly not his fault. He had done nothing, nor said anything to the touchy crack. He had not tickled him under the nose. He had not called him a crackpot, nor a jumper. He had contented himself, calmly, to pace up and down in the paddock, an authorized place where all the sportsmen at the weigh-in have access. Suddenly, the accident had happened and he had seen nothing but thirty-six candles.

Now, on November 20, 1924, the justice system, which the injured man had immediately called for help, finally deigned to make a decision about him. Thirty-three months after the kick, the justice system deigned to say that the sportsman had been unlucky that day at the races. Thirty-three months later, it deigned to think that he might perhaps need to have the wounds that the horse Eldered had inflicted on him on February 25, 1922 dressed, and, on November 20, 1924, finally, it granted him, as a provisional measure, a "provision" of 5,000 francs.
We can see that the kicks of the justice system are noticeably less prompt than those of horses.

Thus the unfortunate sportsman's misfortune actually lasted thirty-three months. He was not only unlucky enough to receive a kick. He was also unlucky enough to have to seek justice. There is every reason to believe that he ended up considering that it was this last misfortune that was the cruelest and that a horse's kick was even less detestable than the legal consequences that it entailed. For thirty-three months, the injured man had to multiply his steps, go to see lawyers, undergo medical examinations and insidious counter-expertise. He had to have a lot of courage, and a lot of time ahead of him, and a lot of patience, not to abandon, out of weariness, all his rights; not to admit defeat. Thirty-three months of bickering, paperwork, grimoires, summonses and reports for a simple horse's kick! And that is probably not a record. And it is probably an almost normal delay.

The slowness of Lady Themis is, in truth, unbearable. It is dangerous too. The litigants, rightly frightened and tired, will end up no longer daring to resort to her. They will not want to waste years running around the courts and the offices of businessmen. They will not want to put up with all the whims and mood swings of the old lady for months and months. They will let it happen, resigned. They will suffer, mute, the iniquity and the outrage. Or else, exasperated and unable to take it any longer, they will take justice into their own hands, without waiting. Then justice will take care of them, finally.

Maurice PRAX.