Stopped Proper

The last remnants of William the Conqueror's Dukedom of Normandy still held by the British Crown are the Channel Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark. There, in sentimental moments, Norman islanders still sometimes toast William's distinguished successor George VI as duke rather than king. There, in hard-pressed moments, islanders still look for aid to William's great ancestor Rollo, first Duke of Normandy. Rollo, it is said, was so just and severe a prince that during his early loth Century reign a farmer could leave a plow in an open field with no fear of theft.

In later days, when Rollo was gone, Normans resorted to the cry of "Haro" (possibly a contraction of "Ha, Rollo") to call the old duke's attention to the new wickedness that stalked the land. In time the Clameur de Haro became the Norman equivalent for a court injunction, a legal demand to stop wrongdoing. The Code Napoleon put Haro out of business in Normandy proper, but in Channel Islands law the Clameur de Haro still had the force of law and "Haro being called, the enterprise must cease."

The Hilltop House. Three months ago on the island of Guernsey, fellow bank clerks began to notice that gaunt, hound-eared Tom Hugo was becoming more & more abstracted about the water pipe supplying his house on a hilltop in St. Peter Port. The water pipe, which Tom considered his own, was already feeding two houses, and Tom had learned that soon the waterworks were planning to add another two houses on the line. If that were done, thought Tom, there would be scarcely a trickle left for himself and his family of eight. He plunged deep into Guernsey law, studying what he might do.

Last week when the waterworks men came to start their digging, Tom was ready for them. As the first shovel bit the dirt, Tom Hugo strode from his house, fell on his knees and cried: "Haro! Haro! Haro! `a l'aide, mon Prince, on me fait tort!" (Help, my prince, I am being wronged). Then he recited the Lord's Prayer in French. Without a word, the workmen picked up their tools.

"When he went on his knees," observed a carpenter standing by, "I knew straight off what he was up to. When he said the prayer in French, I knew he had them stopped proper."

The Lowest Dungeon. When the prayer was done, Tom gathered two witnesses, took them over to notify the bailiff, then bicycled along to file due notice of clameur with the greffe (clerk of court) and affix two five-shilling stamps. "Nothing more will be done," he told his family confidently that night at dinner, "until the case is decided in court."

In old days, when crying Haro was more frequent (Tom's is only the eighth clameur to be raised since 1900), the penalty for losing a case was severe: 24 hours' confinement in the lowest dungeon of 14th Century Castle Cornet. The penalty nowadays is only a small fine. Twenty years ago, Alfred Machon was fined one shilling for a false clameur (TIME, March 3,1930). As Tom's case rested last week, however, the gloomier greybeards of Guernsey noted with interest that workmen were busy restoring the old castle's long-neglected dungeon.

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