CHAPTER V. How William the Testy enriched the province by a multitude of laws, and came to be the Patron of Lawyers and Bumbailiffs. -And how the people became exceedingly enlightened and unhappy under his instructions. AMONG the many wrecks and fragments of exalted wisdom which have floated down the stream of time from venerable antiquity, and have been carefully picked up by those humble but industrious wights, who ply along the shores of literature, we find the following sage ordinance of Charondas, the Locrian legislator:-Anxious to preserve the ancient laws of the state from the additions and improvements of profound "country members," or officious candidates for popularity, he ordained, that whoever proposed a new law, should do it with a halter about his neck, so that in case his proposition was rejected, they just hung him up, and there the matter ended. This salutary institution had such an effect, that for more than two hundred years there was only one trifling alteration in the criminal code; and the whole race of lawyers starved to death for want of employment. The consequence of this was, that the Locrians being unprotected by an overwhelming load of excellent laws, and undefended by a standing army of pettifoggers and sheriff's officers, lived very lovingly together, and were such a happy people, that they scarce make any figure throughout the whole Grecian history; for it is well known that none but your unlucky, quarrelsome, rantipole nations make any noise in the world. Well would it have been for William the Testy, had he haply in the course of his "universal acquirements," stumbled upon this precaution of the good Charondas. On the contrary, he conceived that the true policy of a legislator was to multiply laws, and thus secure the property, the persons, and the morals of the people, by surrounding them in a manner with men-traps and spring-guns, and besetting even the sweet sequestered walks of private life, with quickset-hedges, so that a man could scarcely turn without the risk of encountering some of these pestiferous protectors. Thus was he continually coining petty laws for every petty offence that occurred, until in time they became too numerous to be remembered, and remained, like those of certain modern legislators, mere dead letters, revived occasionally for the purpose of individual oppression, or to entrap ignorant offenders. Petty courts consequently began to appear, where the law was administered with nearly as much wisdom and impartiality as in those august tribunals, the aldermen's and justices' courts of the present day. The plaintiff was generally favoured, as being a customer, and bringing business to the shop; the offences of the rich were discreetly winked at, for fear of hurting the feelings of their friends; but it could never be laid to the charge of the vigilant burgomasters, that they suffered vice to sculk unpunished, under the disgraceful rags of poverty. About this time may we date the first introduction of capital punishments: a goodly gallows being erected on the waterside, about where Whitehall stairs are at present, a little to the east of the battery. Hard by also was erected another gibbet, of a very strange, uncouth, and unmatchable description, but on which the ingenious William Kieft valued himself not a little, being a punishment entirely of his own invention. * It was for loftiness of altitude not a whit inferior to that of Haman, so renowned in bible history; but the * Both the gibbets may be seen in the sketch of Justus Danker, prefixed to the work. 1 marvel of the contrivance was, that the culprit, instead of being suspended by the neck, according to venerable custom, was hoisted by the waistband, and was kept for an hour together, dangling and sprawling between heaven and earth, to the infinite entertainment, and doubtless great edification of the multitude of respectable citizens, who usually attend upon exhibitions of the kind. It is incredible how the little governor chuckled at beholding caitiff vagrants and sturdy beggars thus swinging by the crupper, and cutting antic gambols in the air. He had a thousand pleasantries, and mirthful conceits to utter upon these occasions. He called them his dandle-lions -his wild-fowl-his high-fliers-his spread-eagles-his goshawks-his scarecrows-and finally, his gallows-birds; which ingenious appellation, though originally confined to worthies who had taken the air in this strange manner, has since grown to be a cant-name given to all candidates for legal elevation. This punishment, moreover, if we may credit the assertions of certain grave etymologists, gave the first hint for a kind of harnessing, or strapping, by which our forefathers braced up their multifarious breeches, and which has of late years been revived, and continues to be worn at the present day. Such were the admirable improvements of William Kieft in criminal law; nor was his civil code less a matter of wonderment: and much does it grieve me that the limits of my work will not suffer me to expatiate on both with the prolixity they deserve. Let it suffice then to say, that in a little while the blessings of innumerable laws became notoriously apparent. It was soon found necessary to have a certain class of men to expound and confound them; divers pettifoggers accordingly made their appearance, under whose protecting care the community was soon set together by the ears. I would not here be thought to insinuate any thing derogatory to the profession of the law, or to its dignified members. Well am I aware that we have in this ancient city innumerable worthy gentlemen, who have embraced that honourable order, not for the sordid love of filthy lucre, nor the selfish cravings of renown, but through no other motives than a fervent zeal for the correct administration of justice, and a generous and disinterested devotion to the interests of their fellow-citizens !-Sooner would I throw this trusty pen into the flames, and cork up my inkbottle for ever, than infringe, even for a nail's breadth, upon the dignity of this truly benevolent class of citizens; on the contrary, I allude solely to that crew of caitiff scouts, who, in these latter days of evil, have become so numerous-who infest the skirts of the profession, as did the recreant Cornish knights the honourable order of chivalry-who, under its auspices, commit their depredations on society-who thrive by quibbles, quirks, and chicanery; and, like vermin, swarm most where their is most corruption. Nothing so soon awakens the malevolent passions as the facility of gratification. The courts of law would never be so constantly crowded with petty, vexatious, and disgraceful suits, were it not for the herds of pettifogging lawyers that infest them. These tamper with the passions of the lower and more ignorant classes; who, as if poverty were not a sufficient misery in itself, are always ready to heighten it, by the bitterness of litigation. They are in law what quacks are in medicine-exciting the malady for the purpose of profiting by the cure; and retarding the cure for the purpose of augmenting the fees, Where one destroys the constitution, the other impoverishes the purse; and it may likewise be observed, that a patient, who has once been under the hands of a quack, is ever after dabbling in drugs, and poisoning himself with infallible remedies; and an ignorant man, who has once meddled with the law, under the auspices of one of these empirics, is for ever after embroiling himself with Ꮓ his neighbours, and impoverishing himself with successful lawsuits. My readers will excuse this digression, into which I have been unwarily betrayed; but I could not avoid giving a cool, unprejudiced account of an abomination too prevalent in this excellent city, and with the effects of which I am unluckily acquainted to my cost; having been nearly ruined by a lawsuit, which was unjustly decided against me, and my ruin having been completed by another, which was decided in my favour. It has been remarked by the observant writer of the Stuyvesant manuscript, that under the administration of Wilhelmus Kieft, the disposition of the inhabitants of New-Amsterdam experienced an essential change, so that they became very meddlesome and factious. The constant exacerbations of temper into which the little governor was thrown, by the maraudings on his frontiers, and unfortunate propensity to experiment and innovation, occasioned him to keep his council in a continual worryand the council being to the people at large, what yeast or leaven is to a batch, they threw the whole community into a ferment-and the people at large being to the city what the mind is to the body, the unhappy commotions they underwent operated most disastrously upon NewAmsterdam-insomuch, that in certain of their paroxysms of consternation and perplexity, they begat several of the most crooked, distorted, and abominable streets, lanes, and alleys, with which this metropolis is disfigured. But the worst of the matter was, that just about this time, the mob, since called the sovereign people, like Balaam's ass, began to grow more enlightened than its rider, and exhibited a strange desire of governing itself. This was another effect of the universal acquirements" of William the Testy. In some of his pestilent researches among the rubbish of antiquity, he was struck with admiration at the institution of public tables among the Lacedæmonians, where they discussed topics of a general and |