Arab Americans -- Fiction; Immigrants -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction
Khalid was always glad to come to this Register's Office. For though
the searching of title-deeds be a mortal process, the loafing margin
of the working hour could be extended imperceptibly, and without
hazarding his or his employer's interest. The following piece of
speculative fantasy and insight must have been thought out when he
should have been searching title-deeds.
"This Register's Office," it is written in the K. L. MS., "is the very
bulwark of Society. It is the foundation on which the Trust Companies,
the Courts, and the Prisons are reared. Your codes are blind without
the miraculous torches which this Office can light. Your judges can
not propound the 'laur'--I beg your pardon, the law--without the aid
of these musty, smelling, dilapidated tomes. Ay, these are the very
constables of the realm, and without them there can be no realm, no
legislators, and no judges. Strong, club-bearing constables, these
Liebers, standing on the boundary lines, keeping peace between
brothers and neighbours.
"Here, in these Liebers is an authority which never fails, never
dies--an authority which willy-nilly we obey and in which we place
unbounded trust. In any one of these Registers is a potentiality which
can always worst the quibbles and quiddities of lawyers and ward off
the miserable technicalities of the law. Any of them, when called
upon, can go into court and dictate to the litigants and the
attorneys, the jury and the judge. They are the deceased witnesses
come to life. And without them, the judges are helpless, the marshals
and sheriffs too. Ay, and what without them would be the state of our
real-estate interests? Abolish your constabulary force, and your
police force, and with these muniments of power, these dumb but
far-seeing agents of authority and intelligence, you could still
maintain peace and order. But burn you this Register's Office, and
before the last Lieber turn to ashes, ere the last flame of the
conflagration die out, you will have to call forth, not only your fire
squads, but your police force and even your soldiery, to extinguish
other fires different in nature, but more devouring--and as many of
them as there are boundary lines in the land."
And we now come to the gist of the matter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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