Really Great Ideas Abound | My Web Site Page 035 Chapter 02 Page 01

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In the history of constitutional liberty, of which the Great Charter is the beginning, its specific provisions are of far less importance than its underlying principle. What we to-day consider the great safeguards of Anglo-Saxon liberty are all conspicuously absent from the first of its creative statutes, nor could any of them have been explained in the meaning we give them to the understanding of the men who framed the charter. Consent to taxation in the modern sense is not there; neither taxation nor consent. Trial by jury is not there in that form of it which became a check on arbitrary power, nor is it referred to at all in the clause which has been said to embody it. Parliament, habeas corpus, bail, the independence of the judiciary, are all of later growth, or existed only in rudimentary form. Nor can the charter be properly called a contract between king and nation. The idea of the nation, as we now hold it, was still in the future, to be called into existence by the circumstances of the next reign. The idea of contract certainly pervades the document, but only as the expression of the always existent contract between the suzerain and his vassals which was the foundation of all feudal law. On the other hand, some of the provisions of our civil liberty, mainly in the interest of individual rights, are plainly present. That private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation, that cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted nor excessive fines be imposed, that justice shall be free and fair to all, these may be found almost in modern form.

The fresh-water mussels and snails and the crayfish burrow deep into the mud and silt at the bottom of ponds and streams where they lie motionless during the winter. The land snails, in late autumn, crawl beneath logs, and, burrowing deep into the soft mould, they withdraw far into their shells. Then each one forms with a mucous secretion two thin transparent membranes, one across the opening of the shell and one a little farther within, thus making the interior of the shell perfectly air-tight. There for five or six months he sleeps, free from the pangs of hunger and the blasts of winter, and when the balmy breezes of spring blow up from the south he breaks down and devours the protecting membrane and goes forth with his home on his back to seek fresh leaves for food and to find for himself a mate.

I struggled up on my feet and proceeded to carry the big vessels to the river bank, where I intended to construct the raft. The effort to take each heavy bottle those few metres seemed almost beyond me in my exhausted state. At last I proceeded to strip the floor of the hut, which had been made with split _assahy_ palms (_Euterpe oleracea_ L.), in order that I might make a frame to which I could fasten the bottles. With a great deal of persuasion I got Filippe and Benedicto to help me. The long pieces of _assahy_ were too heavy for our purpose, and we had the additional trouble of splitting each piece into four. It was most trying work in our worn-out condition. Then we had to go into the forest and collect some small liane, so that we could tie the pieces together, as we had no nails and no rope.

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