"As far as all this goes, you are right enough," observed an attorney, who was one of the company present: "but had you gone much farther, you would have been equally correct. You may denounce nearly all our laws and statutes to be radically bad and a disgrace to civilisation. But it is useless to hope that an efficient reform will be ever effected by the Parliament; because the Parliament is loth to interfere with existing usages, and is afraid to meddle with existing rights. Nothing short of a Revolution can possibly accomplish a proper change."
"Why—this is treason!" exclaimed the Honourable Mr. Pettifer, his aristocratic feelings deeply wounded by the lawyer's bold and manly declaration.
"It may be treason—but it is nevertheless the truth," said the attorney, with the cool firmness of a man entertaining an honest conviction of the justice of his observations. "I declare most of our laws to be a disgrace and a shame. In France all the laws are contained in one book, accessible to every person: here, in this country, they are totally inaccessible to the community in general. Do you think France would ever have had her Code without a Revolution?[[48]] Do you know how silly, absurd, and contradictory are some of our statutes—those statutes which are approved of by the Law-Officers of the Crown, and enacted by wise senators? There is a statute, for example's sake,[[49]] which decrees that one half of the penalty inflicted in a particular case is to go to the informer, and the other half to the King. And yet under this statute Judges sentence men to transportation—say, fourteen years' transportation, to be halved by the informer and the King! Then there are statutes still upon the book, and which, though unrepealed, could scarcely be put into execution without inflicting an odious tyranny. A statute of Edward VI. forbids agricultural labourers to hire themselves out, or be hired, by the day, and not for less than a year. By a statute of William and Mary, no peasant may sell goods in a town, except at a fair; and a statute of Henry VII. decrees, under severe penalties, that no cattle shall be killed in a walled town, nor in Cambridge. There is also a statute, I forget of which reign, enacting that no shoemaker may be a tanner, nor a tanner a shoemaker. The laws relating to Marriage are in many respects absurd, and in others obscure. A marriage contracted by persons under age, by means of license, without the consent of their parents, is unlawful; but such persons may contract a lawful marriage by banns, although without the consent of their parents. Thousands and thousands of persons have been led to believe that it is lawful for a man to marry his deceased wife's sister; whereas it is not lawful, and the issue of such a marriage is illegitimate."
At this moment the learned gentleman was interrupted by the clanging of a loud bell, carried by a person who was proceeding round the main building of the prison, and who every now and then stopped ringing for the purpose of vociferating as loud as he could—"Strangers, women, and children, all out!"
"Shall you have to leave?" demanded Frank Curtis, in a whisper to his friend the captain.
"Divil a hap'orth of it, me boy!" exclaimed O'Blunderbuss. "The person who keeps the Coffee-house will be glad to give me a bed as well as yourself; for money, frind Cur-r-tis, procures everything in this blissed Spike-Island."
Another half-hour was passed in discourse on various topics, the inmates of the Coffee-house parlour having become wearied of commenting upon the laws of their country; and, at the expiration of that interval renewed shouts, now emanating from the immediate vicinity of the lower lobby, warned all strangers to quit the prison. At the same time the parlour was rapidly cleared, O'Blunderbuss and Frank Curtis alone remaining there:—for it seemed to be a rule on the part of the prisoners to rush to the gate, for the purpose of seeing the "strangers" take their departure.
The captain now gave a furious pull at the bell; and, when the slip-shod waiter appeared, he demanded a conference with the keeper of the Coffee-house. This request was speedily complied with; and satisfactory arrangements were entered into for beds. Another bottle of wine was ordered, the captain persuading Curtis that it would be better for him to take his first survey of all the grand features of the Bench in the morning, and to pass the evening in conviviality. This they accordingly did until eleven o'clock, when the lights in the parlour were put out, and the two gentlemen were shown to their respective bed-chambers—the said chambers being each about twice as big as a coffin, and quite as inconveniently angular.
[44]. The anecdote is a positive fact!