Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1902 — The Man on the Boundary. [ARTICLE]

The Man on the Boundary.

Where does a man live when he is on a boundary? This old problem has cropped up again in the English courts. .One barrister solved it by ruling that a man lives in that parish where his front door is situated. But what if the imaginary line run under the middle of the step , and come out at the back of the house? Something very, like this actually, exists at Northwich, in England, and as a consequence the occupier of a small cottage for many years has claimed and exercised the right of voting in two parliamentary districts. Perhaps the best general rule for settling boundary disputes is one which was formulated by an English court in 1815. A man who ‘dived in two parishes” became a pauper, whereupon a dispute arose as to which should maintain him. Models of the house and the bed on which he slept were laid before the court that, it might ascertain how, much of his body lay in each parish. In the end it was held that he was ‘Settled” where his head (‘being the nobler part”) lay.