New Hampshire Statesman

JOHN H. GEORGE vs. THE CITY OF CONCORD. The goodly city of Concord, "in our County of Merrimack," although it contains as many law-abiding, well-disposed, church-going and pious people as any other of equal numbers, has again the misfortune to stand before the public as party in a court of justice. It is the subject of general if not universal regret that such should be the case. We are not a litigious people—we are not a quarrelsome city. Some towns of not a fifth our population have afforded more business for courts held here than Concord, with all the tendencies to vice in populous towns. But we are again in court—not voluntarily, but by compulsion, under circumstances stated somewhat minutely when Col. John H. George was before the people as candidate for Congress. It is hardly necessary to repeat the facts, but let us do so as succinctly as possible:

Col. George was attorney for one Peters, now deceased, to recover of the city pecuniary damages for bodily injury sustained by the plaintiff while traveling in the highway. The case was decided by referees, and the city decreed to pay large damages—the amount and costs we can not state with precision. In adjusting the case with the Mayor, George offered to take the note of the city for $2000—he of course settling the matter with the heirs of Peters. This was done—the city probably finding it convenient enough to hire the money, and George, of course, realizing an equal accommodation, or he would not have made the proposal. In the course of last winter, the city having made arrangements for taking up some of its floating paper, and having paid certain notes in the hands of other parties, the Mayor or the City Treasurer waited upon Col. George, to take up the aforesaid obligation. The notes of a Concord bank of undoubted credit—all our banks are, in fact, of that character—were tendered and refused, when the amount was offered in U. S. Legal Tender Notes, and those also refused—George, it is understood, insisting that the city is bound in law to discharge his note in American gold or silver coin. This is a true statement of the essential particulars of the case.

The motive of Col. George for instituting such a procedure must be deduced from the foregoing statement. Standing before the community as a defeated candidate for Congress, the inevitable conclusion of people will be, that the suit he has instituted is in part to punish the city of his birth for having given a majority of about 430 against him in the late election. If, however, it be said that Col. George has the right to avail himself of a rise in the value of gold and silver, and obtain the face of his claim, if he can, in gold and silver at their value when the note was given, then it can with the utmost propriety be said he is willing to practice extortion upon a city and its inhabitants, (of whose money he has already obtained very abundant sums,) by compelling payment in gold or silver, at ruinous premiums, in time of war, when taxes are higher than ever before, and the burdens of the people are enough, without harassing them with such a suit as this.