CHAPTER XXXI.
THE CHART AND THE PILOTS.
“And sovereign law, the state’s collected will,
O’er thrones and globes elate,
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.”
Sir William Jones.
“To do the genteel deeds—that makes the gentleman.”
Chaucer.
’Tis a trite saying, that legislation reflects character. The penal code of a state mirrors the culture, the thought, and the habits of its citizens; because laws grow from men’s exigencies. Of course, the Pilgrims had a legal chart, and they wrote its quaint characters in the ink of their peculiarities. Unlike our statute-book, it made no fine distinctions and it used no legal fictions, but was very simple and very plain; results due to the primitive social customs of the colonies, to the lack of lawyers, and to the constant effort to avoid litigation; for in those days they did not mean
——“With subtle cobweb cheats,