That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep—who can."
We have had some amusing ways of performing this rule in "by-gone ages." Among the most celebrated, were Indulgences and Benevolences. They worked well for those who worked ill, and led to a multiplication of heresies.
Subtraction is perhaps one of the most fashionable of all the rules; and any one who sets himself down for a gentleman must expect to be beset by a swarm of hungry locusts, who make a rule to bleed him at every pore till he becomes poor. When Edward the First took the wealth of the Jews and their teeth at the same time, he showed a fatherly consideration for those who having nothing to eat wanted neither incisores, cuspidati, bicuspidæ, or molarii. But we are to be nipped, and squeezed, and tapped, and leeched, and drained to all eternity, and are still expected to—give.
To take in.—This rule not only teaches us to take from, but also to take in, which is to take from, with true tact and skill. England is the Land of Goshen in this particular, and Smithfield the focus of the art, whence the first rule for selling a horse is—
1. Take in your own father,
Or, if you would rather,
You may take in your mother,
Or humbug your brother;
And though you just kissed her,