“Because it is as full of holes as a cullender.’
“How?”
“The obligation between a government and a people is reciprocal. To protect on the one hand, and to support on the other. Taxes are imposed, first, for the maintenance of the government, and secondly, for such other objects as are deemed necessary or expedient. The moment goods are imported, which are subject to such exactions, the amount of the tax is a debt due to the state, the evasion or denial of which is a fraud. The penalty is not an alternative at your option; it is a punishment, and that always presupposes an offence. There is no difference between defrauding the state or an individual. Corporeality, or incorporeality, has nothing to do with the matter.”
“Well,” sais I, “Domine Doctor, that doctrine of implicit obedience to the government won’t hold water neither, otherwise, if you had lived in Cromwell’s time, you would have to have assisted in cutting the king’s head off, or fight in an unjust war, or a thousand other wicked but legal things. I believe every tub must stand on its own bottom; general rules won’t do. Take each separate, and judge of it by itself.”
“Exactly,” sais the doctor; “try that in law and see how it would work. No two cases would be decided alike; you’d be adrift at once, and a drifting ship soon touches bottom. No, that won’t hold water. Stick to general principles, and if a thing is an exception to the rule, put it in Schedule A or B, and you know where to look for it. General rules are fixed principles. But you are only talking for talk sake; I know you are. Do you think now that merchant did right to aid you in evading the duty on your leaden Washingtons?”
“What the plague had he to do with our revenue laws? They don’t bind him,” sais I.
“No,” said the doctor, “but there is a higher law than the statutes of the States or of England either, and that is the moral law. In aiding you, he made the greatest sale of lead ever effected at once in England; the profit on that was his share of the smuggling. But you are only drawing me out to see what I am made of. You are an awful man for a bam. There goes old Lewis in his fishing boat,” sais he. “Look at him shaking his fist at you. Do you hear him jabbering away about trying it out in the ‘sperm court?’”
“I’ll make him draw his fist in, I know,” sais I. So I seized my rifle, and stepped behind the mast, so that he could not see me; and as a large grey gull was passing over his boat high up in the air, I fired, and down it fell on the old coon’s head so heavily and so suddenly, he thought he was shot; and he and the others set up a yell of fright and terror that made everybody on board of the little fleet of coasters that were anchored round us, combine in three of the heartiest, merriest, and loudest cheers I ever heard.
“Try that out in the sperm court, you old bull-frog,” sais I. “I guess there is more ile to be found in that fishy gentleman than in me. Well,” sais I, “Doctor, to get back to what we was a talking of. It’s a tight squeeze sometimes to scrouge between a lie and a truth in business, ain’t it? The passage is so narrow, if you don’t take care it will rip your trowser buttons off in spite of you. Fortunately I am thin, and can do it like an eel, squirmey fashion; but a stout, awkward fellow is most sure to be catched.
“I shall never forget a rise I once took out of a set of jockeys at Albany. I had an everlastin’ fast Naraganset pacer once to Slickville, one that I purchased in Mandarin’s place. I was considerable proud of him, I do assure you, for he took the rag off the bush in great style. Well, our stable-help, Pat Monaghan (him I used to call Mr Monaghan), would stuff him with fresh clover without me knowing it, and as sure as rates, I broke his wind in driving him too fast. It gave him the heaves, that is, it made his flanks heave like a blacksmith’s bellows. We call it ‘heaves,’ Britishers call it ‘broken wind.’ Well, there is no cure for it, though some folks tell you a hornet’s nest cut up fine and put in their meal will do it, and others say sift the oats clean and give them juniper berries in it, and that will do it, or ground ginger, or tar, or what not; but these are all quackeries. You can’t cure it, for it’s a ruption of an air vessel, and you can’t get at it to sew it up. But you can fix it up by diet and care, and proper usage, so that you can deceive even an old hand, providin’ you don’t let him ride or drive the beast too fast.