II.] POOR MAN'S FRIEND. 37 



friends, you will observe, that I take this from a book 

 which may almost be called the BIBLE of the law. 

 There is no lawyer who will deny the goodness of 

 this authority ; or who will attempt to say that this 

 was not always the law of England. 



45. Our next authority is one quite as authentic, 

 and almost as ancient. The book goes by the name 

 of BRITTON, which was the name of a Bishop of 

 Hereford, who edited it, in the famous reign of EDWARD 

 THE FIRST. The book does, in fact, contain the laws of 

 the kingdom as they existed at that time. It may be call- 

 ed the record of the laws of E d ward the First. It begins 

 thus, " Edward by the grace of God, Kin^ of England 

 and Lord of Ireland, to all his liege subjects, peace, 

 and grace of salvation." The preamble goes on to 

 state, that people cannot be happy without good laws; 

 that even good laws are of no use unless they be known 

 and understood; and that, therefore, the king has order- 

 ed the laws of England thus to be written and recorded. 

 This book is very well known to be of the greatest au- 

 thority, amongst lawyers, and in Chap. 10 of this book, 

 in which the law describes what constitutes a BUR- 

 GLAR, or house-breaker, and the punishment that he 

 shall suffer (which is that of death,) there is this pas- 

 sage : " Those are to be deemed burglars who felo- 

 niously, in time of peace, break into churches or hou- 

 ses, or through walls or doors of our cities, or our 

 boroughs ; with exception of children under age, and 

 of poor people wJwfor hunger, enter to take any sort 

 of victuals of less value than twelve pence ; and ex- 

 cept idiots and mad people, and others that cannot 

 commit felony." Thus, you see, this agrees with the 

 MIRROUR OF JUSTICES, and with all that we have read 

 before from these numerous high authorities. But 

 this, taken in its full latitude, goes a great length in- 

 deed ; for a burglar is a breaker-in by night. So that 

 this is not only a taking ; but a breaking into a house 

 in order to take ! And observe, it is taking to the val- 

 ue of twelve pence ; and twelve pence then was the 

 price of a couple of sheep, and of fine fat sheep too; 

 nay, twelve pence wa.s the price of an ox^ in this. 



