The notary Walewyn van der Veen was frequently in trouble, usually for contempt of court. And I doubt not “the little bench of justices” was sometimes rather trying in its ways to a notary who knew anything about law. On one occasion, when a case relating to a bill of exchange had been decided against him, Van der Veen spoke of their High Mightinesses the magistrates as “simpletons and blockheads.” This was the scathing sentence of his punishment:-- “That Walewyn Van der Veen, for his committed insult, shall here beg forgiveness, with uncovered head, of God, Justice, and the Worshipful Court, and moreover pay as a fine 190 guilders.” This fine must have consumed all his fees for many a weary month thereafter, if we can judge by the meagre lawyers’ bills which have come down to us. Another time the contumacious Van der Veen called the Secretary a rascal. Thereat, the latter, much aggrieved, demanded “honorable and profitable reparation” for the insult. The _schout_ judged this epithet to be a slander and an affront to the Secretary, which “affected his honor, being tender,” and the honor of the Court as well, since it was to a member of the Court, and he demanded that the notary should pay a fine of fifty guilders as an example to other slanderers, “who for trifles have constantly in their mouths curses and abuses of other honorable people.” Another well-known notary and practitioner and pleader in the busy little Court held in the Stadt Huys was Solomon La Chair. His manuscript volume of nearly three hundred pages, containing detailed accounts of all the business he transacted in Manhattan, is now in the County Clerk’s Office in New York, and proves valuable material for the historiographer. He had much business, for he could speak and write both English and Dutch; and he was a faithful, painstaking, intelligent worker. He not only conducted lawsuits for others, but he seems to have been in constant legal hot water himself on his own account. He was sued for drinking and not paying for a can of sugared wine; and also for a half-aam of costly French wine; and he was sued for the balance of payment for a house he had purchased; he pleaded for more time, and with the ingenuous guilelessness peculiar to the law said in explanation that he had had the money gathered at one time for payment, but it had somehow dropped through his fingers. “The Court condemned to pay at once,”--not being taken in by any such simplicity as that. He had to pay a fine of twelve guilders for affronting both fire inspector and court messenger. He first insulted the _brandt-meester_ who came to inspect his chimney, and was fined, then he called the _bode_ who came to collect the fine “a little cock booted and spurred.” The Court in sentence said with dignity, “It is not meet that men should mock and scoff at persons appointed to any office, yea a necessary office.”