Our whole capital is in
active operation, and our whole population is in active employment.
An idle fellow, like Pugnose, who runs away to us, is clapped into
harness afore he knows where he is, and is made to work; like a
horse that refuses to draw, he is put into the teamboat; he finds
some before him and others behind him, he must either draw, or be
dragged to death."
No. V
Justice Pettifog.
In the morning the Clockmaker informed me that a Justice's Court was
to be held that day at Pugnose's inn, and he guessed he could do
a little business among the country folks that would be assembled
there. Some of them, he said, owed him for clocks, and it would save
him a world of travelling, to have the Justice and Constable to
drive them up together. "If you want a fat wether, there's nothing
like penning up the whole flock in a corner. I guess," said he, "if
General Campbell knew what sort of a man that 'ere magistrate was,
he'd disband him pretty quick; he's a regular suck egg--a disgrace
to the country. I guess if he acted that way in Kentucky, he'd get
a breakfast of cold lead some morning, out of the small eend of a
rifle, he'd find pretty difficult to digest. They tell me he issues
three hundred writs a year, the cost of which, including that
tarnation constable's fees, can't amount to nothing less than three
thousand dollars per annum.
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