Toppleton's Client; Or, A Spirit in Exile

by John Kendrick Bangs

"It would seem as if it ought to," said Toppleton. "But you know what men are. They believe very little that they hear, and not much more than half that they see. You couldn't expect anyone to believe the points of a person unseen. If they can't see you they can't see your hardships, and besides, hearsay evidence unsupported is not worth shucks."

"I don't know what shucks are," returned the exile, "but I see your point."

"It's a serious point," said Toppleton. "And then there is another most embarrassing side to it. We can't afford to have our case weakened by putting ourselves in a position where countercharges can be brought against us, and I am very much afraid our opponents would charge vagrancy against you, for the very obvious and irrefutable reason that you have absolutely no visible means of support. You wouldn't have a leg to stand on if they did that, and yet it does seem a pity that something cannot be done to enable you to appear, for as I said a minute ago, you have otherwise a perfectly magnificent cause of action. Why, Edward, there isn't a page in the Comic Blackstone that does not contain something that applies to your case, and that ought to make you a winner if we could get around this horrible lack of body of yours.

"For instance," continued Toppleton, opening A'Beckett's famous contribution to legal lore, "in the very first chapter we find that Blackstone divides rights into rights of persons and rights of things. Clearly you have a right to your own person, and no judge on a sane bench would dare deny it. Absolute rights, it says here, belong to man in a state of nature, which being so, you have been wronged, because in being deprived of your state of nature you have been robbed of your absolute rights. Clear as crystal, eh?"

"That's so," said the exile. "You are a marvel at law, Hopkins."

"In section six reference is made to the habeas corpus act of Charles the Second, and unless I have forgotten my Latin, that is a distinct reference to a man's right to the possession of his own body. Section eight, same chapter, announces man's right to personal security, and asserts his legal claim to the enjoyment of life, limbs, health and reputation. Have you enjoyed your life? No! Have you enjoyed your limbs? Not for thirty years. Have you enjoyed your health. No! Barncastle of Burningford has enjoyed that as well as your reputation. I think on the whole though, we would better not say anything about your reputation if we get into court, for while it is undoubtedly yours, and has been by no means enjoyed by you, you didn't make it for yourself. That was his work, and he is entitled to it."

"True," said the exile. "I do not wish to claim anything I am not entitled to."

"That's the proper spirit," said Toppleton. "You want what belongs to you and nothing more. You are entitled to your property, for which section eleven of this same chapter provides, saying that the law will not allow a man to be deprived of his property except by the law itself. If a man's own body isn't his, I'd like to know to whom it belongs in a country that professes to be free!"

Toppleton paused at this point to make a few notes and to reinforce his own spirit by means of others.

"Now, under the head of real property, Chatford," he said, "I find that in England property is real or personal. I think that in this case, that of which you have been deprived comes under both heads. One's body is certainly real and unquestionably personal, and if a man has a right to the possession of each, he has a right to the possession of both, and he who robs him of both is guilty of a crime under each head. Real property consists of lands, tenements and hereditaments. Lands we must perforce exclude because you have lost no lands. Tenements may be alluded to, however, with absolute fairness because the body is the tenement of the soul. Of hereditaments I am not sure. I don't know what hereditaments are, and I haven't had time to find out anything about them except that they are corporeal or incorporeal, which leads me to infer that you have been wronged under this head also, for I must assume that a hereditament is something that may or may not have a body according to circumstances, which is your case exactly.