Hanging was not greatly in favour with those whom we must, in spite of objections, call the Anglo-Saxons. Various fanciful definitions of Time have been given. According to Goethe, it is on the roaring loom of Time that the Earth-Spirit weaves the living garments of God. According to Carlyle, Time is the outer veil of Eternity. These poetical definitions seem to have little or no practical value. They would convey nothing, for instance, to the time-keeper of a wharf or great warehouse. It has been reserved for our race to give a definition of real solid value: “Time is money.” The phrase, revealing in three words the soul of a people, has gone the round of the world in its native tongue, hailed from pole to pole as the final definition of Time. We might look with confidence to find in the origins of a people alone capable of making this supreme discovery instances of this practical outlook on the universe. We shall not be disappointed. The laws of our forefathers, based on this commercial view, were administered, with a strict eye to business, on the joint-stock or co-operative principle. To kill a man was mere waste, if money could be screwed out of him or out of those who could be made responsible for him. “Business is Business.” Every man—in a sense different from that in which Walpole used the words—every man had his price. Men, according to rank, were carefully appraised: a man’s “were” was so much, his “wite” so much. A murderer must pay these sums, or they must be paid by those responsible for him. And not only every man, but every part of each man had its price. One sees in encyclopædias of domestic economy, prepared for the instruction of young and thrifty housekeepers, diagrams setting out the differences in value of such and such parts of an ox, a sheep, or of “a side” of bacon. Such a chart for use by an Anglo-Saxon dispenser of justice would have had to be executed on a large scale. The human body was divided into thirty-four parts, upon each of which was placed a fixed value. It is needless to give here all the thirty-four categories; it will be sufficient to set out the prices to be paid for injuries to the arm and hand:— “If the arm-shanks be both broken, the bōt is xxx shillings. If the thumb be struck off, for that shall be xxx shillings as bōt. If the nail be struck off, for that shall be v shillings as bōt. If the shooting (_i.e._, fore-) finger be struck off, the bōt is xv shillings: for its nail it is iv shillings. If the middlemost finger be struck off, the bōt is xii shillings, and its nail’s bōt is ii shillings. If the gold (_i.e._, ring-) finger be struck off, for that shall be xvii shillings as bōt, and for its nail iv shillings as bōt. If the little finger be struck off, for that shall be as bōt ix shillings, and for its nail one shilling, if that be struck off.”[78]