Again, everyone in the community is practically at the mercy of the housebuilder, and accordingly any damage caused by the use of faulty materials or bad workmanship, had to be made good by the builder. If the house collapsed and the owner was killed, the builder was put to death, while if the owner’s son or servant was killed, the son or servant of the builder was similarly put to death, in accordance with the primitive law of retaliation. House-tenure in the time of Khammurabi was generally on the repairing-lease system, the tenant being required to leave the house in the same condition in which he found it, while it was customary to pay rent half-yearly instead of quarterly, the rent being paid in advance. The ultimate sanction and enforcement of these various laws concerning the relationship subsisting between capitalist and workman, owner and hirer, and landlord and tenant, was to be found in the courts. Strange to say, the chief scene of jurisdiction was the temple, the god himself adjudicating through the mediumship of his earthly plenipotentiaries. The precise form of legal procedure in the time of Khammurabi is not known, but certain facts in regard to the institution and conduct of suits have been elucidated. One great difference between law-suits in the time of Khammurabi and those of our own day was that the cases were not apparently conducted by counsel, but by the parties themselves, an arrangement which must have considerably accrued to the advantage of the abler of the two suitors. The more important cases were heard by a bench of judges somewhat resembling our Court of Appeal, while the minor suits were heard by a single judge, as in our High Courts and County Courts. The plea had to be set down in writing in the form of an “affidavit”; whether the defendant was able to file a counter-affidavit does not seem quite clear. At the trial itself the plaintiff and defendant both summoned their witnesses, and the judgment was signed by both parties. Appeal to a higher court was the only remedy for the loser of the suit, the judge in the lower court not being allowed to hear the same case a second time under pain of being struck off the list, and at the same time mulcted for twelve times the amount of the fine he had previously ordered, or the damages he had assessed.