THE BOOK OF PENALTIES.
Tins work might have been called the Informer's Chide, or a Ready Road to Wealth. Every man who wishes to live easily on the means of others, should possess himself of the Book qf Penal- ties. The rest of the world may buy it, in order to " read the fate they cannot hope to shun." It will show them the pitfalls in their path, and the snares which beset them on the way-sble; but if they mean to move on, in one or the other they must be caught, -should their adversaries resolve to watch for them. " We eau- ' not," says the able compiler of this indispensable volume, " travel on the highway, swing a gate, read a newspaper, buy a pair of stockings, receive or pay money, take medicine, nor even engage in religious worship, without being obnoxious to some overt or latent enactment scattered through the wide waste of the Statutes at Large."
The Penalties which hang over the heads of the public may be divided into three classes,—penalties levied ostensibly to protect the public in general ; penalties imposed for the protection of the revenue ; penalties for the protection of peculiar interests. These in their turn may be excessive, grasping, unnecessary, or absurd. To exhibit the former classification, requires, as we see by the book, between five and six hundred pages. To display those of the latter class, would 'squire a whole Sperialor. A lbw instalass of the dilIbrent species may, lio..vever, be given: ex unsay'.,' leonent.
Let the makers of clothes_ look to their deeds; the wearers of coats to their buttons.
Ni, person shall make, sell, or set on ally clothes or gm melds. buttons mathe of do: h. sere", dregget. 6 ize, comb t, ur other ,• Mrs of whir!' clothes
math., ur avy butt(u.s made of wt.od only, on pain of ii:rfeiiing 101. per dozen iu n. oieties to his Majesty told party suing. No tailor or other person in tireat Britain still make. sell, Or use, buttons or buttonholes made or bound with cloth, serge, drugget, frize, camlet, ur bturi, on pain of 5/. for each dozen of buttons or buttonholes. No person in Great Britain to use or wear buttons or buttonholes made of or bound with cloth, or any stuff whereof clothes arc made, on pain of forfeiting 40s. fur every dozen of buttons or buttonholes. Not to extend to clothes made of velvet.
So much for the protection of metal-button-makers. How are the public guarded ? As respects their creature comforts, tolerably well, if penalties avail them any thing. First and foremost, take the wine-bibbers. Every seller adulterating his wines shall for- feit 300/. (half to the informer), and the offender be imprisoned three months. Wholesale dealers must not mix Spanish with French or Rhenish wines; nor with a variety of other ingredients, such as perry ; nor put in isinglass, brimstone, &c.; under a penalty of 1001. Retailers are mulcted in 20/. for the same offence. Cape wine is the production of a British colony, and is peculiarly protected. Mixing red or white Cape wine with any otl:er wine, involves the forfeiture of the mixture and a penalty of 3001. Yet the greater portion of Cape wine is undrinkable when pure; the " putting in" of isinglass is for " fining ;" many of the other ingre- dients are necessary, say the masters of the art, for the cure of diseases; and the mixing, like the other actions, is done daily— perhaps in many cases there is no mixing, for there is no wine— the merchant evades the statute by giving a compound of genuine home-made.
Pass we to the next strong drink, ale and beer. No dealer in beer shall possess or use any material for " darkening the colour ;•• nor any of a list of articles, "whose names were long to tell," as MILTON sings, to be used as a substitute for malt and hops, under a penalty of 2001. and forfeiture for every offence. If any druggist, &c. "or other person, shall send, sell, or deliver" such articles, he shall forfeit 500/, and the articles. How works the wisdom of our legislators? At least one brewer's druggist is in Parliament, and the business is an established trade.
The solids are looked to as well as the liquids. The butcher, the baker, the candle-maker, are within the gripe of the laws. The miller must be paid according to statute. Butter and cheese must be packed, and salted, and transported, as the Legislature thinks fit ; and minutely tender are its regulations on fish, occupying, in the abridged form of the Book of Penalties, nearly fourteen rages. The fisheries are important matters in the eyes of a practical min. All fish taken, cured, or imported in foreign vessels, is prohibited. This commodity-, salt fish, only concerns the poor; so Winiporte—let
them eat pie-crust. " Turbots, lobsters, stock-fish, live eels, anchovies, sturgeon, botargo, and caviare," do or did concern the rich ; and they are specially exempted. Dainty too is the statute as to size; considerate as regards the price of small turbot.
Bringing to the shore, exposing to sale, or exchanging for goods unsizeable fish, not of the lengths following, from the eyes to the extent of the tail—, uamely, bret or turbot, sixteen inches ; brill or pearl, fourteen inches; coati, twelve inches ; whiting, six inches ; bass and mullet, fourteen inches; sole, plaice, or dab, eight inches; and flounder, nine inches; subjects to 20s. penalty, and forfeiture of fish. But bret or turbot, brill or pearl, under these dimensions, may be exposed to sale, so they be not sold above rid. per lb., for every bret or turbot under sixteen inches, or brill or pearl under fourteen inches. By 10 and II William III. e. :24, the minimum size of lobsters offered foe sale is fixed at eight inches from the tip of the nose to the end of the middle find the tail.
It will have been guessed that small regard has been had to the golden mean—the favourite " juste milieu "—in fixing the penal- ties. But the greatest instance of rapacity defeating its objects, is in matters where the revenue is concerned. Post-dating a banker's draft, or not " truly " specifying the place where drawn, involves a penalty of 1601.; receiving it, 201.; paying it, 1001., and the loss of the money paid. The beer trade, though now only indirectly connected with the Excise, is subjected to penalties amounting in the aggregate to 17701., inclusive of forfeitures. The laws relating to the maltsters have been revised, consolidated, and improved: they still leave time monster obnoxious to mulcts extending to- wards 40001.; of which 100/. is not haying " the malt n st ck regular and even ;" another IOW. for not making couch frames of the specified shape,* and so forth. Stone bottles yield a revenue of some 30001. a year. Its due collection is fenced round with penal- ties rising to 2:200/. Starch is another of the minor Excise-duties. Besides forfeitures and restrictions on the manufacture (which tike place in all cases), there arc twenty-eight different acts for which the maker is open to fines varying from 51. to 500/., and amounting in the aggregate to about 3600/. But enough of instances.
Are all, are the majority of penalties described in this book, use- ful ,—No. Are they enforced ?—Never, except by the trading informer, or against some luckless dealer, in bad odour with the Excise. In reforming this part of the Statute-book, the fiscal re- gulations should be simplified and the fines lowered; the greater portion of the others may be swept away. It is questionable whether any act, save false weights and measures, should be visited by penalty, but be punishable by a magistrate according to the circumstances. Adulteration is indeed a heavy offence; but while the public arc bent upon buying goods fur less than prime cost, it will most assuredly prevail, be the penalties what they nry. The oily complete check i; a 'respectable seller and a liiteral boner. if penalties,, however, are to remain, let their amount be ,'.niewliat proportioned to the onace; and let them be strictly eu'breed by a public o;licer, and nut remain a snare to the unwary an:I an instrument of extortion.
We I.:commend 1,-)ltitue, not only to the man of business, but to the Foliation and the legislator. The first, jesting apart, will find it practically useful; it will give the second an insight into the working of many matters, and enable him to institute a not laborious comparison between public opinion and legislation in past and later times ; the senator will find it a guide and a bea- con—a digest of existing laws which require consideration and improvement—a hint how to reform by not doing likewise.
• " Every comb frame to he made with the side and bottom straight and at right angles to each other, having three sides permanently fixed,aud the other side formed by moveable boards of two inches in thickness; such couch to be so supported on the out- side in every part as to be of the same capacity when tilled with grain as when empty. Penalty for using couch otherwise made—forfeiture of the corn found therein, and 1001:'
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