Bolster

“ The law in Upsidonia is for the poor, not for the rich. Bolster has taken the law into his own hands, and I am [Pg 202] glad of it. I respect and honour him for his noble stand. When he came home and learnt what had happened, he threw every ounce of food in the house out into the garden. He did more than that. He is a big man, as you know, and he forced his butler to get up all the wine out of his cellar and pour it down the stable drains. The servants were in a terrible state of anger, but they could do nothing with him. ”

“ During the sacking of a city, the most eager and impetuous soldier would be instantly arrested in the work of pillage by the word of his chief, and would, with the strictest fidelity, deliver up the booty he had obtained, that it might be deposited in the general treasury. ”

“ The searching of both your servants and your rooms was accomplished, not through the employment of force, but by the power of money. Your servants insisted they had nothing on their persons but liniment, and they accepted one gold piece each to allow me to verify their statements. Another gold piece gave me, for a time, the freedom of your room. If you have not the papers upon you, then there is no harm in allowing me to run my hand over your clothes, because the package is a bulky one and I will speedily corroborate your statement. ”

“ To take a dinner with a friend some go; In fashion's haunts some for an hour to swell; Some strive, what creditors intend, to know; And some the moments on their love bestow.”
“Thus you have a full, true, and particular, as well as amusing account, of a Day Rule, or what in the cant language of the day is termed hiring a horse, which sometimes proves a bolter.”
“And what is meant by a bolter?”
“He is one,” replied Dashall, “who, having obtained the privilege of a Day Rule, brushes off, and leaves his bondsmen, or the Marshal, to pay his debt; or one who transgresses the bounds ”

“ You may readily suppose that your officers must be accomplices in this traffic, and that this alone will occasion [Pg 110] such an empty treasury. Your inferior servants are much distressed and ill treated; and in this manner are not only your own affairs but those of the princes of your blood managed, without any exception.
'Item, it is proper that you should be made acquainted with the tricks and deceit of those officers called Generals, in the receipt of your finances. ”

“ Every one is a man and a brother at sheep-washing. Wage, one pound per week; wood, water, tents, and food provided. Their accounts are simple: so many weeks, so many pounds; store accounts, so much. Hospital? Well, five shillings. Cheque; good-morning.
The wool-pressers, the fleece-rollers, the fleece-pickers, the yardsmen, the washers' cooks, the hut cooks, the spare shepherds—all these and other supernumeraries, inevitable at shearing-time, having been paid off, the snowstorm of cheques which has been fluttering all day comes to an end. ”

“ The chances that this man's rascality would be discovered were much less when chief of the departments of transportation and supply of an army than they afterward proved to be in the Treasury. I had in my possession at all times large sums of money for the needs of the army, and among other purposes for which these funds were to be disbursed was the purchase of horses and mules. Certain officers and men more devoted to gain than to the performance of duty (a few such are always to be found in armies) quickly learned this, and determined to profit by it. ”

“ But," said he, "your officers suffer as much as you do, we all suffer, the officers have no money to purchase supplies with any more than the private men have, and if there is nothing in the public store we must fare as hard as you. ”

“ The Comte, darkly flushed, was gripping the hilt of his sword with his left hand. “I will give it you to-night—with all my heart!” he said between his teeth.
“Do not be absurd, Monsieur!” said his leader sharply. “You are beside yourself to suggest such a thing. How could we go out, you and I, the general and the second-in-command of the army of Finistère! The whole of the West would ring with the scandal. We must part, that is plain, but we cannot fight . ”

“ The banker, no doubt, like the conqueror, runs risks; but there are so few men in a position to wage this warfare, that the sheep have no business to meddle. Such grand struggles are between the shepherds. ”

“ It comprehends the innumerable requisitions demanded and enforced, whether as loans, or in provisions or merchandise, or in money as an equivalent for both; the levies of men, of horses, oxen, and carriages; corvees of all kinds; the emptying of magazines for the service of our armies; in short, whatever was required for the maintenance, a portion of the pay, and divers wants of those armies, from the time they had posted themselves in Brabant, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, and on either bank of the Rhine. ”

“ Each of us to-day in whatever way we have immixed with that Imperial adventure as shareholders or plain citizens; as preachers, journalists, or perhaps in some sweet womanly way; every soldier who has returned without stain from the Delta; every administrator of every grade, nay, every holder of every salaried office in the M’Korio, owes something to that half hour when so considerable a sum as £1250 was lent without any kind of fee or troublesome inquiry at a nominal rate of fifteen per cent. to rescue a fellow-being from dishonour. ”

“ Decades of Selectmen, heavy with this responsibility, tried to lay their plans accordingly in regard to Old Man Warner, and ran their heads into a stone wall. One Board of Selectmen after another knew exactly what would happen; the old dumb-head would get a stroke of paralysis, or palsy, or softening of the brain, or something, and the town Treasury would bleed at every pore for expensive medical service, maybe an operation at a hospital, and after that, somebody paid to take care of him. ”

“ While at every few hundred yards an armed man, before whom the poorer people cowered, would frown at the slaves at the head of my column, and then, seeing my finely mounted guard and my own immutable face and shining garments coming up behind them, would smile and bow and hint at a few small coins—which I gave. ”

“ At the Relief Rooms they treasure up and mysteriously display, much as I suspect a soldier would flaunt a captured battle-flag, a certain roll of paper, I dare not say how many yards long, covered with certificates from one end to the other, obtained from all parts of the country and from all sorts of persons, and all necessary in order to secure perhaps a three or six months' pay of one sick soldier. The correspondence of the back-pay department is itself a burden. ”

“ She was worth the two million francs she cost him."
"And more," said the officer. "That caprice of the old Baron's cost four persons their lives. Oh! such passions as these are like the cholera!"
"What had you to say to me?" asked the Baron, who took this indirect warning very ill.
"Oh! why should I deprive you of your illusions?" replied the officer. "Men rarely have any left at your age!" ”

“ Money, in whatever hands, will confer power. Distress will fly to immediate refuge, without much consideration of remote consequences. Bluster has therefore a despotick authority in many families, whom he has assisted, on pressing occasions, with larger sums than they can easily repay. The only visits that he makes are to these houses of misfortune, where he enters with the insolence of absolute command, enjoys the terrours of the family, exacts their obedience, riots at their charge, and in the height of his joy insults the father with menaces, and the daughters with obscenity. ”

“ Do you think it likely the conqueror will place on me two sets of panniers?" "No," rejoined the Shepherd. "Then," said the Ass, "as long as I carry the panniers, what matters it to me whom I serve?"
In a change of government the poor change nothing beyond the name of their master. ”

“ To them the roughest staff has become a crosier, a staff of command, making its power felt by the mightiest sovereigns of the earth. The bag or wallet of the apostles has been converted into treasures, benefices, principalities and revenues. Permission to beg has become a right to exact tithes, devour nations, fatten on the substance of the wretched, and enjoy, by divine right, the privilege of pillaging society, and disturbing it with impunity. ”

“ The officer replied: "We are such good friends that I know I can speak openly to you. We officers are compelled to find some additional sources of revenue in order that our pockets may not be altogether empty. When we pay our men we make a small percentage of gains on the exchange; and we also carry more soldiers on our rosters than there actually are present. If we had to live on our salaries we would die of hunger!" ”

“ With a breadth of vision far above the ordinary, a remarkable insightedness, and absolutely calm in his poise, never disturbed by the clash or clamor of contest, he meted out his strength in proportion to the demand of the occasion which elicited it, and invariably left the impression that a fund of power was held in reserve for whatever emergency might arise. ”

“ Your intelligence that the story is false about the officers forced to sell, is admirable. You may see them all three every day, no more in the army than you. Twelve shillings for mending the strong box; that is, for putting a farthing's worth of iron on a hinge, and gilding it; give him six shillings, and I will pay it, and never employ him or his again. ”

“ Every petty shopkeeper who has two thousand francs in the savings-bank—every peasant who has a little plot of land, will say to himself: ‘This fellow sticks at nothing. Poor devil though I am, I may be the next to be plundered.’ If you carry out this project of yours, it will not be with my assistance. I will help you take an Empire very willingly, but not to plunder a strong-box. ”

“ My offer to smoke the farmer's cigars is no more impudent than the assertion of the Duke of Argyll, that he, the duke, finds employment for a tailor by wearing out clothes for which the farmer has to pay.
If the farmer paid no rent, he could employ the tailor, and he would have the clothes. The duke does nothing more than deprive the farmer of his clothes. ”

“ I did out of my own purse disburse 15l. to pay for their pressing and diet last night and this morning; which is a thing worth record of my Lord Mayor. Busy about this all the morning, and about the getting off men pressed by our officers of the fleet into the service; even our own men that are at the office, and the boats that carry us. ”

“ And to be sure it is very hard upon us to be obliged to pay them, and to keep 'um too, as we publicans are. I had twenty of 'um last night, besides officers: nay, for matter o' that, I had rather have the soldiers than officers: for nothing is ever good enough for those sparks; and I am sure, if you was to see the bills; la! sir, it is nothing. I have had less trouble, I warrant you, with a good squire's family, where we take forty or fifty shillings of a night, besides horses. ”

“ A man may lend his money upon very good security, and yet have his debtor much under his power.' BOSWELL. 'No doubt, sir. He can always distress him for the money; as no man borrows, who is able to pay on demand quite conveniently.'
We dined at Elgin, and saw the noble ruins of the cathedral. Though it rained much, Dr Johnson examined them with a most patient attention. ”

“ To my mind, the duke and peer owe far more to the
workman and the pauper than the pauper and the workman owe to the
duke. The obligations of duty enlarge in proportion to the
benefits which society bestows on men; in accordance with the
maxim, as true in social politics as in business, that the burden
of care and vigilance is everywhere in proportion to profits. Each
man pays his debt in his own way. When our poor toiler at the
Rhetoriere comes home weary with his day's work has he not done
his duty? ”

“ Though I could not help wondering how in all creation I was going to perform a journey of several hundred miles that would occupy a week at least without a cent of money in my pocket, a clerk was detailed to assist me, and for the next hour I counted money over a hard-tack box, jamming it away instantly into my haversack while he entered in a little book the amount received from each person, the sums given to pay for its expressage, and the addresses to which it was to be sent. ”

“ In proof I may be allowed to mention one instance of a Catholic servant maid, an orphan, who, during a servitude of seventeen years, at seven nobles a year, had saved twenty pounds. The sequestrators, having discovered with whom she had deposited her money, took two-thirds, thirteen pounds six shillings and eightpence, for the use of the commonwealth, and left her the remainder, six pounds thirteen and fourpence. In March, 1652, she appealed to the commissioners at Haberdashers' Hall, who replied that they could afford her no relief, unless she took the oath of abjuration. ”

“ The cashier caught the ministerial pair at the dawn of official delight, when the newly appointed statesman is benign and affable. To the minister's inquiry as to what brings him there, he replies with the bank-notes,—informing his Excellency that he hastens to pay him the customary indemnity. Moreover, he explains the matter to the minister's wife, who never fails to draw freely upon the fund, and sometimes takes all, for the "outfit" is looked upon as a household affair. ”