Then there is a Charter of Newcastle. Or, rather, the inviolable Customs
of that town, very old, drawn up nearly eight hundred years ago, but
beginning from far earlier; and in these customs you find written:
"If a plea shall arise between a burgess and a merchant it must be
determined before the third flowing of the sea"--that is, within three
tides; a wise provision! For thus the merchant would not miss the last
tide of the day after the quarrel. How living it is, a phrase of that
sort coming in the midst of those other phrases!
All the rest, worse luck, has gone. Burgage-tenure, and the economic
independence of the humble, and the busy, healthy life of men working to
enrich themselves, not others, and that corporate association which was
the blood of the Middle Ages, and the power of popular opinion, and, in
general, freedom. But out of all these things that have perished, the
tide remains, and in the eighteen clauses of the Customs, the tidal
clause alone stands fresh and still has meaning. The capital, great
clinching clause by which men owned their own land within the town has
gone utterly and altogether. The modern workman on the Tyne would not
understand you perhaps, to whom in that very place you should say, "Many
centuries ago the men that came before you here, your fathers, were not
working precariously at a wage, or paying rent to others, but living
under their own roofs and working for themselves.
Pages:
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245