tween, each owner or keeper shall be liable for the damages done on the occupied
lands of others by an animal straying from
his or her lands and being taken on such occupied lands.”) There is a fine of not more
than $10 nor less than $2 for knowingly permitting animals into another’s land.63
In Ex. 22:4, even enemies’ strays must be
returned (“If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or
his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring
it back to him again”). Vermont towns must
appoint poundkeepers “for the impounding
of beasts liable to be impounded.”64 There
is no express obligation of even enemies to
impound beasts running at large in Vermont
law.
Titles 20: Internal Security and
Public Safety and 24: Municipal
and County Government
Ruminations: Palimpsests of the V.S.A.
a long way from the original water-based
treatment for unclean hands and surfaces.
We even regulate menus, requiring chain
restaurants with thirty or more locations under the same name to post the number of
calories for each standard menu item.61
Deuteronomy orders isolation of the unclean—Deut. 23: 10 (“If there be among you
any man, that is not clean by reason of uncleanness that chanceth him by night, then
shall he go abroad out of the camp, he shall
not come within the camp”). The Vermont
Commissioner of Health has a right to quarantine “a person diagnosed or suspected
of having a disease dangerous to the public health.”62
Title 21: Labor
There is a Biblical commandment to maintain good fences—Ex. 22 (“If a man shall
cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, and
shall put in his beast, and shall feed in another man’s field; of the best of his own
field, and of the best of his own vineyard,
shall he make restitution”). The law of Vermont echoes this in 24 V.S.A. § 3804 (“When
the lands of two or more individuals are so
situated that none of them are compelled to
make and maintain a fence on the dividing
line between their land by reason of open
or unoccupied lands or highways lying be-
12
Deuteronomy requires that employers
pay wages on the day they are earned—
Deut. 24:14 (“At his day thou shalt give him
his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon
it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon
it: lest he cry against thee unto the Lord,
and it be sin unto thee”). In Vermont, an employ \