Introduction
Jean-Baptiste Say was a French businessman and economist, an authority on Adam Smith and champion of free markets who in 1804 resigned in protest from Napoleon’s dirigiste government. He told the following story to show that ‘economy is inconsistent with disorder’.
I RECALL that, when I was visiting the countryside one time, I had an example of these little losses with which a household risks burdening itself through negligence.* Owing to a paltry missing latch, the gate of a farmyard, which opened onto fields, was always ajar. Those who went through always pulled it to again, but as there was no external means of securing it the gate was left to bang; quite a few animals from the farmyard had gone missing in this fashion.
One day, a fine young porker got out and made it to the woods, at which everyone took to the field, the gardener, the cook and the farmyard girl, leaving their posts and going in pursuit of the fugitive creature. The gardener was the first to realise what had happened. In leaping over a ditch to head the pig off, he sprained himself severely and spent more than a fortnight in bed.
‘A Stitch in Time (Saves Nine)’ has been chosen for the title of this extract, but students of English proverbs will be able to think of more. ‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’ says one, and ‘It’s no good spoiling the ship for a ha’porth o’ tar’; we even have a whole verse about it:
FOR the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for want of a horse-shoe nail.
as given by American children’s novelist Susan Coolidge (1835-1905) in ‘What Katy Did’ (1872).
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