SONGS OF THE SQUATTERS.
105
|
Whereon I would interrogate you briefly.
Tell me, then,
If any difference exist in law
Betwixt the pledge of personal estate and alienation?
|
| Mr. Cardwell.
|
Very great, my lord:
If personal estate or goods be sold,
Possession ought to follow the transaction;
Or, if the seller still do keep the goods,
It is—so Turyne's case says—a badge of fraud:
But if the property be only pledged,
Possession in the pawner does not give
The slightest badge of fraud. 'Tis true, if bankrupt
The mortgagor become, his assignees
Will have a preference o'er the mortgagee,
Because the property does still remain
Within the order and disposing power
Of him they represent.
|
| Lord Stanley (rising sternly).
|
Sir, I intended
To have promoted you to mighty honour;
But finding you so grossly ignorant
Of the first axioms of the legal science,
I do repent me of my former purpose.
Sir, had you been a lawyer, you'd have known
That mortgages of personal estate
Are held by English law in perfect hate;
For law, indeed, we do not greatly care,
Save that injustice must not be too bare.
Away, young man, and seek your special pleader;
If you talk thus, you'll never be a leader.
|
THE "DEVIL AND THE GOVERNOR."
A FRAGMENT.
| The Devil.
|
I've come, my dear soul, for an hour or two,
On passing events to chat with you;
To render you thanks for the mischief you're brewing
For the state you oppress, and the men you're undoing.
And also to offer—excuse my freedom—
A few words of advice where you seem to need 'em.
|
|The Governor, after some parley, excuses himself from offering hospitality on the grounds of the lateness of the hour, and that he does not himself drink "grog;" to which answers the
| Devil.
|
* * Such is the general spread of sobriety,
They've got up in hell a Temperance Society;
Now I make it a rule, though some trouble it brings,
To patronise all those sort of things.
A sober sinner is not the less
A sinner for want of drunkenness;
|
