...This is a proceeding supplementary to execution... each of the defendants having been examined under oath the court is asked to make an order requiring the defendant Jacob Harris to surrender up a silver watch and the defended Thos. M. Harris to surrender up two Horses to be applied in satisfaction of the debt described in the execution. If the property mentioned is exempt from Execution the order can not be made. The claim that it is exempt - Paragraph 3 Section 690 C. CP. provides that the farming utensils or implements of husbandry of the judgment debtor also two oxen or two horse or two mules etc. and exempt from execution. The law is entirely silent as to the occupation of the debtors under their subdivision. He may or may not be a farmer. But the property mentioned in the subdivision is exempt from execution without reference to the occupation, trade or calling of the claimant... Thomas M. Harris is clearly entitled to have the horses in Controversy exempted to him. He is a farmer and has been a farmer all of his life, is the head of a family and is now living with his family upon a small tract of land 1 3/4 acres which is titled by his minor son and another tract of 17 acres which at present is rented out. He is a cripple and unable for that reason to perform the usual manual labor upon a farm as he has but one arm. Though living upon his place he took employment as a barkeeper on the 20th of January last - less than a month ago and is now working off an indebtedness which he owes to his employer. His employment is of the most precarious and uncertain nature for he is liable at any moment to be discharged - Indeed his employment is but temporary and he expressly stated that the moment of his discharge he would return to his work on his farm not having immediate use for his horses they are running on the pasture - Land which he once owned but which he sold to his present employer Kid Holden. The evidence is all one way: that the defendant is and from his boyhood has been a farmer and only since the 20th of last January has he been engaged in any other business. And furthermore that the horses were taken by the Sheriff under this execution and that he (Harris) claims them as exempt and the Sheriff released them. The employment of this defendant as a barkeeper is only temporary. He and his family reside on the farm and he never has ceased to be a farmer...

The defendant Thos. M. Harris being a cripple is entitled to one horse but being a farmer he is entitled to two... The law surely would not refuse its protecting shield because of the smallness of the farm. The larger holders are not to be preferred to the smaller ones. But this defendant has lands besides the Homeplace and because it is temporarily rented out does not and could not change the fact that the defendant is a farmer. There are numerous decisions which uphold the doctrine that where a person has more than one occupation or vocation he is not thereby precluded from claiming such articles as "tools of trade" as he would be entitled to claim if he were engaged in but one trade...

The discovery was made and the plaintiff asks the Court to order the defendant Jake Harris to deliver up "an ordinary silver watch" and brass chain. It is not remembered whether the evidence showed the value of this watch and chain - it was exhibited to the Court and described "as an ordinary silver watch". It is doubtful if it is worth more then three dollars and six bits. It is difficult to find an authority on the question of the exemption of a watch for the Supreme Courts of the Country are rarely if ever called upon to pass upon such insignificant questions but among the legal fraternity "an ordinary silver watch" is usually and generally treated as exempt either under the head of tools of trade implements or wearing apparel... There is nothing to show that Jake Harris was ever called upon or notified to give up this watch and as there is nothing to show that he refused to give it up or that he concealed it. It is respectfully submitted that the Court would not have authority under this proceeding to order it delivered up. And the same is true of the Horses the debtor has not concealed on his property nor refused to surrender any of it up to the officer of the Court therefore under the law would hot have authority to make the order.

The remedy for the plaintiff is to send the officer with an Execution and let him make the seizure of any property not exempt from Execution. If therefore it should appear that the defendants wrongfully conceal or refuse to surrender up such property then to apply to the Court for relief under the sections of the Code above mentioned. No such case has yet arisen...