Rick,
In response to your question about silly laws: I had planned to include
excerpts from actual silly statutes in my book, The Oxford Dictionary of
American Legal Quotations (Oxford University Press, 1993), but this is
the one category that I never got to in the rush of going to press. Our
library just got in a reprint of Gus Edwards, Legal Laughs, to which J.
Wesley Miller contributes a bibliographical introduction which includes a
list of silly law books. Here are some of them:
Robert W. Pelton, Laughable Laws & Courtroom Capers, Loony Legalities &
Curious Cases (1993), Loony Sex Laws (1992), Loony Laws That You Never
Knew You Were Breaking (1991); Richard Hyman, The Columbus Chicken
Statute (1986); Nigel Napier-Andrews, This Is the Law? A Selection of
Silly Laws from Around the World (1976); Richard Hyman, The Trenton
Pickle Ordinance and Other Bonehead Legislation (1976); Barbara Seuling,
You Can't Eat Peanuts in Church and Other Little-Known Laws (1975);
Richard Hyman, It's Against the Law! (1949), Looney Laws (1947); It's the
Law (1936); William Seagle, There Ought to Be a Law (1933).
Fred Shapiro
Associate Librarian for Public Services
Yale Law School
shapiro@minerva.cis.yale.edu
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