The Crater eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 635 pages of information about The Crater.

The Crater eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 635 pages of information about The Crater.

Nor did the accession of law and intelligence help the matter much.  Shortly after the lawyer made his appearance, men began to discover that they were wronged by their neighbours, in a hundred ways which they had never before discovered.  Law, which had hitherto been used for the purpose of justice, and of justice only, now began to be used for those of speculation and revenge.  A virtue was found in it that had never before been suspected of existing in the colony; it being discovered that men could make not only very comfortable livings, but, in some cases, get rich, by the law; not by its practice, but by its practices.  Now came into existence an entire new class of philanthropists; men who were ever ready to lend their money to such of the needy as possessed property, taking judgment bonds, mortgages, and other innocent securities, which were received because the lender always acted on a principle of not lending without them, or had taken a vow, or made their wives promises; the end of all being a transfer of title, by which the friendly assistant commonly relieved his dupe of the future care of all his property.  The governor soon observed that one of these philanthropists rarely extended his saving hand, that the borrower did not come out as naked as the ear of the corn that has been through the sheller, or nothing but cob; and that, too, in a sort of patent-right time.  Then there were the labourers of the press to add to the influence of those of religion and the law.  The press took up the cause of human rights, endeavouring, to transfer the power of the state from the public departments to its own printing-office; and aiming at establishing all the equality that can flourish when one man has a monopoly of the means of making his facts to suit himself, leaving his neighbours to get along under such circumstances as they can.  But the private advantage secured to himself by this advocate of the rights of all, was the smallest part of the injury he did, though his own interests were never lost sight of, and coloured all he did; the people were soon convinced that they had hitherto been living under an unheard-of tyranny, and were invoked weekly to arouse in their might, and be true to themselves and their posterity.  In the first place, not a tenth of them had ever been consulted on the subject of the institutions at all, but had been compelled to take them as they found them.  Nor had the present incumbents of office been placed in power by a vote of a majority, the original colonists having saved those who came later to the island all trouble in the premises.  In these facts was an unceasing theme of declamation and complaint to be found.  It was surprising how little the people really knew of the oppression under which they laboured, until this stranger came amongst them to enlighten their understandings.  Nor was it less wonderful how many sources of wrong he exposed, that no one had ever dreamed of having an existence.  Although

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The Crater from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.