The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1876-05-13

were SLOW 10 recognize WHEN lOunu. IL oC
cupies an intermediate place, If il does not
entirely fill up the gap, between those rum
inants which have hollow and persistent cor
nuous horns and those which have solid and
deciduous ones. 1t has eight incisors in the
lower jaw, and no canine teeth, but twenty
four moars. We find examples OF this dental
formula in both the above groups. In It's
skin and coat it is like the deer. Its eye is
NEST like that of the goat. 1t is the most
delicate and particular feeder of all rumi
nants, while the goat Is the most prOmiscu-
Gus consumer. In its salacious disposition
it resembles and even excels the goat, but is
the farthest of oil from il IN its ability to
climb rocks and precipiceS. 1t has many
characteristics hitherto supposed to be con
fined TO one or the other of the families OF
rumnants above referred to, while it exhibits
others peculiar to itself.
The Royal Statute Revision Commission
OF Englang have, in their labors of condens-
| ing and revising the enactments of Parlla,
ment unearthed many strange old laws. The
subjoiue1, pertaining thereto, is from the
London Daily Neas:
| In the course Of their iabors the commits,
sioners have brought TO light curious and for
HOllcH IlCSCo Va 'SSioAHtoh' NY h"'S =
up strange laws, quite AS suggestive and as
alien to our modern world as the flint knives
| Of an early civilization found in the drift.do-
posts. Until the other day there were IN
force, or at least there were to be found in the
statute book, enactments more fitted for a
community of Bushmen than for Englishnen.
1t provokes sometimes shudder, and some
times q smile, to read Of the terrible or quaint
engines which were slumbering In retirement
1t ls not generally known that until 1863 the
Statute of LaboreIs was regularly printed as
portion Of the law OF the land. The curious
foreigner who consulted our statutes twenty
wears ago would there find that Parliament, TO
restrain the malice oiidle and wicked servants
who wished excessive wages, "to the great
damage of the great men," had named the
wages which servants must be willing to re-
ceive, and had ordered that "stOcks be made
in every town" for the punishment of the i'll
conditioned and the ungrateful haymaker not
content with the statutory penny day, or the
threshcr who stood out for more than two.
pence-halfpenny quarter. This is not the
only statute lately in force or regularly re-
printed which breathes sublime disregard of
political economy. How astOnished would be
the city 10 learn that it is only few years
since the statute-book declared that mo man
shall take profit by exchange of gold or sill.
| NcT. WHAT NOulI DC lilC ICuCSlIuuS VI Jul
great iron,masters if they were informed that
| by recently repealed act of Edward Ill it
was expressly stipulated that Iron made In
England and iron brought into England and
gold these shall not be carried out OF the realm
of England on pain OF FORGETTING the double to
the king" We do not know that very many
alien merchants would have settled among us
had they been aware of the existence of y
statute declaring that they must prove that
they employ within the realm all the money
which they earn there. Mr.. Ruskn, who is
never weary of descanting on the commercial
iniquities of our time, would read some of
the early statutes with pleasure, and would
deplore their loss He would be delighted 10
find severe penalties against the makers of
shoddy CLOTH whose malpractices are minute
ly and graphically described in the preamble
of one enactment: Certain evil.disposed and
deceitful persons says this garrulous statute
OF the EliZabethan times, "using TO buy and
ingross into their hands great store OF linen
cloth, do use TO cast the pieces of cloth over
beam or piece OF timber made for their pur
pose, and do by suuLry devices rack, stretch,
and draw the same both of length and breadth (;
and that done, do then with battledoors, pieces
of timber and wood and other things, sore
beat the same, ever casting thereupon certain
deceitful liquors mingled with chalk and 9th
cr like things whereby the cloth is made to
appear not only much finer and thicker to the
eye than it is indeed, but also the threads
thereof be so lOOscd aud made weak, that
after three or four washngs il will scarcely
hold together 1t IS curious to find that
nearly two hundred years ago our ancestors,
troubled as We are with the abuses OF specu-
lation, were engaged in passing acts Ito re-
strain the number and ill-pracuces of brokers
and stock ,jObbers." But for the most part
the objects of the repealed statutes are strange
and obsolete. We enter a world of buried
ideas when oe peruse their preambles. Their
purpose is to encourage this or "discOur-
age" that They are inspired by Il confident
belief that an act of Parliament can alter all
things, the laws of nature or the heart of man
alike. They recoil from no difficulties OF OBJ
stacles, and prohlbitall commerce with France
with as much GOODNESS and cOnclsenesS as II
they were making mere municipal regula-
tious. Nothing Is too minute or too large Tor
them to handle. They settle the religion OF
The realm and the wages and dress of the
people.
Mr.. Froude once wrote an ingenious essay,
the nucleus of his creates; work, To show how
much neglected lore, useful Ia the historian,
lay IN the statute book And II cannot escape
the most careless reader of the schedules OF
the revision statutes That a multitude oil IN
leresling facts have been turned up and for
the first time exposed To general view. What
"A picture do not these repealed statutes give
of the relations between England, aud Scot
land, and Wales, No armur, viciuals, or
other reireshment,' says one piihy and con.
else enactment, shall be sent INTO Scotland
without the kings license upon pain OF for
fixture thereof" \ host Of measures oiicn-
sivc or disrespCctiul To- Welshmcn had To b.
repealed Not only was it a crime Ia carry
armo. or provision into Wales, tut the Bis
tedtOdd itself wac mcnaccd, seeing 1t was de-
clared that mo conventional or congregation
shall be suffered in Wales for any council or
other purpose without license If the chief
officers OF that lordshp aud IN their presence.
In scarcely less evil oddr were Irishmen. In
our own day We have been familiar with the
'ey, Ireland for the lrisE;' but IN the days