My father entertained strong prejudices, often to an irrational degree; and I cannot see that he himself had suffered at the hands of the men of the law; but neighbours had, and so had my grandfather. Yet in all these cases, the victims by their folly or laxity had laid themselves open to be spoiled. Moreover the fault, if any, lay with the Law itself, which was excogitated to entangle flies like a cobweb, not to do justice, but to feed those who lived by the law.[1]
He never had any grievance against those who did his business for him in law.
Another of my father's prejudices was better justified; it was against the company promotors of Cornish mines. My grandfather had been nearly ruined by investments in these tin mines. I was wont to dread the visits to Lew House of a certain Captain Davy, with white hair, and face blazing red as a poppy, knowing that he was there to inveigle my grandfather into some fresh ruinous speculation. The first thing that my father did on entering on the property was to get rid of all these investments.
In our own neighbourhood, in the parish of Bridestowe, it was announced that gold was to be found. Our neighbour, Mr. Calmady Hamlyn, thought that his fortune would be made, as the gold was found on his property. There was a sale of machinery for the extraction of the ore, but, in the long run, it was discovered that the gold dust was put into the water that was subsequently used to wash the crushed stone, and after a year the whole scheme collapsed, as a swindle that had been promoted by the makers of the gold-washing machinery.
Many years later, I was at Fowey, song collecting, and I went into the Lugger Inn, where I found an old miner who sang me a song, or fragments of one on "The Keenly Lode." I recast it, and here it is. It is typical of Cornish mining speculations:
"Old Uncle Pengerric a Captain was, |
- ↑
"Hodie juris coctiores non sunt, qui lites creant,
Quam sunt hi, qui si nihil est litium, lites serunt."
- Poenulus, Act III, Scene 2.
