Another perplexing question which came before the English courts some years ago, and which not less vividly shows the importance of attention to the words we use, related to the meaning of the word “team,” as used by writers generally, and used in a written agreement. A certain noble duke made an agreement with one of his tenants in Oxfordshire concerning the occupancy of a farm, and a portion of the agreement was couched in the following terms: “The tenant to perform each year for the Duke of ----, at the rate of one day’s team-work, with two horses and one proper person, for every fifty pounds of rent, when required (except at hay or corn harvest), without being paid for the same.” In other words, the rent of the farm was made up of two portions, the larger being a money payment, and the former a certain amount of farm service. All went on quietly and smoothly in reference to this agreement, until one particular day, when the duke’s agent or bailiff desired the farmer to send a cart to fetch coals from a railway station to the ducal mansion. “Certainly not,” said the farmer. “I’ll send the horses and a man, but you must find the cart.” “Pooh, pooh! what do you mean? Does not your agreement bind you to do team-work occasionally for his Grace?” “Yes, and here’s the team; two horses and a careful man to drive them.” “But there can’t be a team without a cart or wagon.” “O yes, there can, the horses are the team.” “No, the horses and cart together are the team.”
The question which the court was called on to decide in the lawsuit which followed, was,--What is a “team”? The case was at first tried at Oxford, before a common jury, who gave a verdict substantially for the duke. A rule was afterward obtained, with a view to bring the question of definition before the judges at the Court of Queen’s Bench. The counsel for the duke contended that as team-work cannot be done by horses without a cart or wagon, it is obvious that a team must include a vehicle as well as the horses by which it was to be drawn. Mr. Justice A. said that, in the course of his reading, he had met with some lines which tend to show that the team is separate from the cart,--
“Giles Jelt was sleeping, in his cart he lay; Some waggish pilf’rers stole his team away. Giles wakes and cries, ‘Ods Bodikins, what’s here? Why, how now; am I Giles or not? If he, I’ve lost six geldings to my smart; If not, Ods Bodikins, I’ve found a cart.’”