A problem for a jury
Puzzle
Judges are sometimes called upon to solve knotty points of law, which would bother the average puzzlist. Here for example is an old-timer which, so far as I am aware, has never been answered satisfactorily: Polus instructed Ctesiphon in the art of pleading, and it was agreed between teacher and pupil that the tuition fee should be paid when the latter should win his first case. Some time having passed by, and the young man being without clients and evincing no ambition to secure business, Polus, in despair, brought the matter before the court. Each party pleaded his own case, and Polus, speaking first, said: "It is indifferent to me how the Court may decide this matter, for, if the decision be in my favor, I recover my fee by virtue of the judgment; but, if my opponent wins the case, it being his first, I obtain my fee according to contract." Ctesiphon, who was evidently an apt scholar, replied: "The decision of the Court is even of less importance to me, for if the verdict is in my favor I am thereby released from my debt to Polus. But if I loose the case, the fee cannot be demanded according to the contract." A still more interesting case is said of a certain king who built a bridge and decreed that all persons about to cross it should be interrogated as to their destination. If they told the truth they were permitted to pass unharmed, but if they answered falsely they were to be hanged on a gallows erected at the centre of the bridge. One day a man about to cross was asked the usual question, and replied: "I am going to be hanged on that gallows!" Now, if they hanged him, he had told the truth and should have escaped, whereas if they did not hang him, he had answered falsely and should have swung for it.
References
- Loyd, Sam [1914]. in Loyd, Sam, Jr.: Sam Loyd's Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles Tricks and Conundrums (in English). New York: Lamb Publishing company, page 36.
