“That was the fault of his lawyers, perhaps,” Clarence said.
“Of course it was, but he should have watched his lawyers. The trouble is, that you can't teach ‘an old dog new tricks.’ Those old Spaniards never will be business men,” said Pittikin, sententiously.
It was finally agreed that Clarence would call on Mr. Mechlin that evening, to notify him that the settlers would meet the Don on Monday afternoon at 2 o'clock on the porch of Gasbang's house.
CHAPTER V.—The Don in his Broad Acres.
“The one great principle of English law,”—Charles Dickens says, “is to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by this light, it becomes a coherent scheme, and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble.”
The one great principle of American law is very much the same; our law-givers keep giving us laws and then enacting others to explain them. The lawyers find plenty of occupation, but what becomes of the laity?
“No. 189. An Act to ascertain and settle the private land claims in the State of California,” says the book.
And by a sad subversion of purposes, all the private land titles became unsettled. It ought to have been said, “An Act to unsettle land titles, and to upset the rights of the Spanish population of the State of California.”
It thus became not only necessary for the Spanish people to present their titles for revision, and litigate to maintain them (in case of any one contesting their validity, should the least irregularity be discovered, and others covet their possession), but to maintain them against the government before several tribunals; for the government, besides making its own laws, appeals to itself as against the land-owners, after their titles might have been approved. But this benign Act says (in “Sec. 11”), “That the Commissioners, the District and Supreme Courts, in deciding on the validity of any claim, shall be governed by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; the law of nations; the laws, usages, and customs of the government from which the claim is derived; the principles of equity, and the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, etc., etc.”
Thus the government washes its hands clean, liberally providing plenty of tribunals, plenty of crooked turnings through which to scourge the wretched land-owners.