This caricature by Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827), showing a dispute between Mr Snip the tailor and Dr Galen Glauber the physician, was published in 1802. Accompanying the original were statements by plaintiff and defendant, each of which was a tissue of puns based on their respective professions. According to Mr Snip, he had provided what he said ladies called ‘inexpissables’ (breeches) but the customer had rejected them as too tight and refused to pay. “An ’t please your Worship” said the tailor “I beg leave to tender my suit, trusting I shall receive such measure of redress as is fitting.” The doctor’s puns are a little too technical (and anatomical) to warrant repetition.
Part 1 of 2
I MYSELF had the misfortune to acquire a little experience in this way. Having purchased some cloth, I agreed with a tailor to make me a coat for ten shillings.* Although there were two witnesses present, and I even had the agreement in his own hand-writing, he denied it, and sent me a bill for twenty shillings.
I gave him the ten, but refused to pay him more: he said it was well, he should complain to the court of justice, and make me pay the remainder. He went immediately, and procured a summons for me to appear, but this he never delivered; and, after a certain time, produced a decree from one of the courts, ordering me immediately to pay the ten shillings, and à further fine of six shillings, for not having obeyed the summons. This I thought extreme injustice, and consulted one of my friends, who was an attorney, what I should do. He replied, “Although the case is very hard, you must immediately pay the money: you may then sue him for having withheld the summons, and for having, by that means, obtained an unjust decision against you.”
* There were twenty shillings to the pound sterling (£), with a shilling (s) equal to twelve pence (d). The pound sterling (£, a unit of currency) should not be confused with the pound avoirdupois (lb, a unit of weight). Abu Taleb gives us some sample prices in Regency London:
Meat (‘of all kinds’): sevenpence-ha’penny (7½d) a lb (0.45kg)
Bread: 15d for 4lb (about 4 typical 400g loaves)
Porter (dark beer): 5d a quart (2 pints or 1.13 litres)
For his evening meals in Dublin he paid five shillings (Abu Taleb, like runaway slave Frederick Douglass visiting forty years later, very much liked the Irish), and four shillings when travelling in England — or eight when his host, going Dutch, charged him for wine the abstemious Muslim had not drunk. It cost him four shillings to get his turban dyed (but only a shilling and sixpence in France, where the colour lasted better). He estimated that there were eight Indian rupees to the pound.
Précis
During a visit to Regency London, Mirza Abu Taleb Khan ordered a suit for ten shillings. The tailor, however, demanded twice the agreed fee, and took his demand to court; but he never told Abu Taleb, who was duly fined for failing to answer a summons. To his disgust, his lawyer advised him to pay up and countersue. (58 / 60 words)
Part Two
A view of the Central Criminal Court or ‘Old Bailey’ in London, by Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) and Augustus Charles Pugin (1762–1832). “In London,” Abu Taleb observed, “there are several public courts of justice, each of which has its particular department, and separate judges. The court in which criminals are tried is called the Old Bailey. As I had the happiness to be acquainted with several of the judges of this court, and was anxious to obtain some insight of English jurisprudence, I frequently attended their sittings.” The ‘Persian Prince’ (he was Indian but of Persian extraction, and wrote in Persian) was also introduced to King George III, met several statesmen, joined noblemen on their country estates, and received more free tickets to the Opera from “ladies of quality” than he knew what to do with.
I WAS however perfectly satisfied with the experience I had already gained, and quietly paid the money. After that transaction, whenever any unjust claim was made on me, I endeavoured to compromise the matter, by offering to pay a third, or a half, of the amount; and, as my adversaries found it troublesome to go backward and forward, in attendance on the court, they were, in general, reasonable enough to comply with my wishes. This is the plan adopted by many sensible Englishmen, who find it easier to settle with their opponents in this manner, than to contend the point in a court of law.
I was disgusted to observe, that, in these courts, law very often overruled equity, and that a well-meaning honest man was frequently made the dupe of an artful knave; nor could the most righteous judge alter the decision, without transgressing the law.
Précis
Abu Taleb did not take his lawyer’s advice. He found many native Englishmen had suffered the same injustice, and like them settled out of court, beating the tailor (and other fraudulent tradesmen) down to an acceptable compromise. It revolted him that British justice should be so corrupt, and that upright members of the legal profession could do nothing about it. (60 / 60 words)
