THE WORK OF PUNISHMENT AND RECLAMATION.
_The Effect of_ “_The Society for the Suppression of Mendicity_”—_State
Business carried out by Individual Enterprise_—“_The Discharged
Prisoners’ Aid Society_”—_The quiet Work of these Societies_—_Their Mode
of Work_—_Curious Statistics_—_Singular Oscillations_—_Diabolical
Swindling_.
THE Society for the Suppression of Mendicity has done more towards
checking imposture, and bringing evildoers to punishment, than the
Government itself, notwithstanding all the elaborate and expensive
machinery at its command. Nor, by the way, is this a solitary instance
of business peculiarly its own being shirked by the State, and handed
over to be dealt with by the skill, energy, and perseverance of a few
private individuals. A kindred association to that, the province of
which is the better government of the beggars of London, is that which
devotes its energies to the reclamation of returned convicts. Anyone at
all acquainted with the matter is aware of the immense amount of lasting
and substantial good that the “Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society” has
accomplished. That the individuals chiefly concerned—the returned
convicts themselves—fully appreciate the advantages held out by the said
Society is sufficiently proved by the fact, that out of 368
licence-holders discharged into the metropolis, 290 placed themselves in
its hands. No doubt such arrangements do prove as convenient as
economical as regards the Government; but whether it is just to inflict a
responsibility of such magnitude on private individuals is another
question; or whether the easement it confers is cheaply purchased by our
rulers at the cost of so unmistakable a confession of their incapacity.
So quietly and unobtrusively do these self-constituted guardians of
public morality perform the arduous duties they undertake, that it may be
safely assumed not one person in a thousand is aware what their prime
objects are, let alone the means by which they are accomplished. As
regards the Mendicity Society, there can be no doubt what is the popular
impression. It is commonly regarded as a sort of amateur detective
association for the discovery of fraudulent begging,—a Society that has
in its employ certain cunning individuals of the detested breed of
“spies,” who earn their wages by lurking in shady places, and peeping
over men’s shoulders, and covertly listening to their private
conversation. The full extent of the Society’s usefulness, according to
vulgar prejudice, is represented by the unfortunate “cadger” pounced on
in the act of receiving alms, and carried before a magistrate to account
for that enormous iniquity. People, however, who know no more of the
Society than this, know only of the smallest and least important of its
functions. It is a poor’s-relief association on an extensive scale. It
has its labour-sheds for testing the genuineness of the mendicants that
apply at the office, to say nothing of a real treadmill of its own.
Moreover it proclaims its ability to offer suitable employment to _every_
able-bodied mendicant referred to it. The following is the Society’s
method of dealing. The plan of the institution is to provide subscribers
with tickets, which are intended to be distributed to street-beggars
only, and which will insure admission to the Society’s office, where the
applicant is examined by the sitting or assistant manager, who directs
such immediate relief as in his judgment may appear proper.
If the applicant appears deserving, and is without lodging, money
sufficient to procure one for the night is given. In cases where the
applicant appears to have an immediate claim on any London parish, the
pauper is referred to the overseers of such parish. If, as in some
cases, it is requisite for the applicant to return on a subsequent day,
he is furnished with a return-ticket, which introduces him again to the
office for further relief. In the mean time inquiry is made, if
practicable, into the character of the pauper, by which the sitting
manager is governed in awarding proper relief. Men are sent to the
Society’s premises to chop wood, and women and children to the
oakum-room. During the time they are employed, men receive eightpence,
and women fourpence per day, for lodging-money, and two meals, and one
meal for each member of the family; and on Saturdays double allowance of
money, with an extra meal to take home for each, that they may have no
excuse for begging on Sunday. Each meal in winter consists of a pint of
nutritious soup, and a sixth of a four-pound loaf of good bread; and in
summer one quarter of a pound of cheese, and the same proportion of
bread. At the end of a week, if they apply, the order for work may be
renewed, until they have been employed a month, when the case is
discharged, unless the sitting manager considers an extension of
employment desirable; in which case it is laid before the committee, who
renew the order for another month, or give such other relief as they
think most likely to prevent the necessity of a recurrence to
street-begging. In order to check repeated applications from the same
persons, those who habitually resort to the refuges for the houseless, or
the metropolitan workhouses, for lodging, and to the Society for food, if
males, have to perform three hours’ work at the mill; if females, three
hours’ work at oakum-picking, before food is given them; and the men may
also, if practicable, have three days’ work at stone-breaking.
Applicants of this description making more than six applications within
one year are refused further relief, unless on investigation they are
found deserving of assistance.
Persons who have not been six months in London are not considered objects
of the charity; but food is given to persons passing through London in
search of work, to assist them on their way. In the case of mendicants
incapable of labour, the amount of daily allowance is 6_d._ for a single
man, 9_d._ for a man, his wife, and young child, and 1_s._ in any other
case; but this allowance may be doubled on Saturday night, at the
discretion of the sitting or assistant-manager. Labourers at the mill
receive 6_d._ per day, and the wife and children of persons employed may
receive a meal. The wives of men employed either at the mill or
stone-yard may also have work, and receive wages, provided that their
joint earnings do not exceed one shilling per day.
The Society’s “Report” recently issued shows the kind and the extent of
the business transacted through its officials up to the close of the year
1867. It contains much that is interesting as well as instructive, and
not a little that is puzzling. We are informed that within the year 644
vagrants were arrested and taken before a magistrate, and that of this
number 311 were committed, and 333 discharged. From the commencement to
the close of the year 1867, upwards of 10,000 cases of “casual” relief
passed through the hands of the Society, as well as between 400 and 500
cases that are alluded to as “registered”—a term, it may be assumed, that
distinguishes the ordinary casual case from that which demands
investigation and private inquiry. Amongst the whole number, 44,347
meals were distributed, and a considerable sum of money and some clothes;
it being no uncommon occurrence for the management to rig-out the ragged,
hard-up unfortunate applying for relief, and to start him in the world in
a way that, if he has the intention, gives him a fair chance of
recovering a decent position.
The most curious part of the affair, however, appears in the plain and
simple tabulated statement that represents the yearly number of vagrants
relieved and set to work, and consigned to proper punishment, since the
time of the Mendicity Society’s first establishment. In the first year
of the Society’s existence, when the scheme was new, and the vagrant crop
dead-ripe for gathering, and the officers eager to get at their new and
novel employment, 385 “sturdy beggars” were caught and sent to gaol. It
is consoling to know that in the last year (1867) this number was
decreased considerably, and that no more than 311 were sentenced. This
may appear no vast reduction, but when we consider not only the
enormously-increased population since 1818, and, what is of equal
significance, the advance of intellect and cleverness and cunning amongst
this as every other community doomed to live by the exercise of its wits,
the result is one on which the country may be congratulated.
When, however, we come to regard the long column that at a glance reveals
the figures that pertain to vagrant committals for fifty successive
years, a decided damper is thrown on one’s hopes that the trade of the
shiftless roving vagabond is becoming surely though slowly extinguished.
As might be expected of a class so erratic in its movements, it would be
difficult to measure them by any fixed standard; but one is scarcely
prepared to discover the awful amount of uncertainty that prevails as
regards the going and coming of these impostor tramps, when there is a
dearth of them, and when their swarming may be expected. They are like
cholera or plague, and have their seasons of sloth, and again of general
prevalence and virulence. The laws that govern the movements of the
professional beggar are inscrutable. You may make war on him and thin
his ranks, and prosecute him and persecute him, and by the end of the
year be able to show in plain unmistakable figures that he is not half
the formidable fellow he was last year; that you have blunted his sting
and decreased his dimensions. You still prosecute the war of
extermination, and next year you are in a position to reveal in
black-and-white further glorious results. The thousand has become seven
hundred, and again the seven hundred four. At this rate, ere two more
years are elapsed, you may strip the rags from your last beggar’s back,
and hang them on the city gate as a scarecrow and a caution against a
revival of the detestable trade.
But alas for our delusive hopes! Come another year—that which showed our
seven hundred beggars dwindled down to four—and without any apparent
cause the enemy, crippled and more than half killed as it seemed,
reappears on the stage hale and sound, and with years of life in him yet.
The four hundred has grown to six. There are no means of accounting for
it. Depression of trade and poverty widely prevailing will not do so,
for such are times of prosperity and fattening with the professional
beggar. When “giving” is the order of the day, and benevolence,
sickening at the sight of privation and distress that seems endless,
shuts her eyes and bestows her gifts on all comers, then is the cadger’s
harvest, then he may pursue his shameful avocation with comparative
impunity. If we required evidence of this, it is furnished by the
Society’s statistics. In 1865, which was an ordinarily fair year with
the working man, the number of vagrant committals reached 586, while in
the year following, when destitution prevailed so enormously, and the
outcries of famine were so generously responded to through the length and
breadth of the land, the number of begging impostors who got into trouble
were only 372.
It will be as well, perhaps, that the reader should have set before him
the figures for the various years precisely as they stand in the
Society’s last issued Report. As will be seen, for some reason that is
not explained, there are no returns for the four years 1830 to 1833
inclusive. Appended to the “committed vagrant list” is a record of the
number of cases specially inquired into and “registered,” as well as a
statement of the number of meals that were in each year distributed.
Years. Cases registered. Vagrants committed. Meals given.
1818 3,284 385 16,827
1819 4,682 580 33,013
1820 4,546 359 46,407
1821 2,336 324 28,542
1822 2,235 287 22,232
1823 1,493 193 20,152
1824 1,441 195 25,396
1825 1,096 381 19,600
1826 833 300 22,972
1827 806 403 35,892
1828 1,284 786 21,066
1829 671 602 26,286
1830 848 — 105,488
1831 1,285 — 79,156
1832 1,040 — 73,315
1833 624 — 37,074
1834 1,226 652 30,513
1835 1,408 1,510 84,717
1836 946 1,004 68,134
1837 1,087 1,090 87,454
1838 1,041 873 155,348
1839 1,055 962 110,943
1840 706 752 113,502
1841 997 1,119 195,625
1842 1,223 1,306 128,914
1843 1,148 1,018 167,126
1844 1,184 937 174,229
1845 1,001 868 165,139
1846 980 778 148,569
1847 910 625 239,171
1848 1,161 979 148,661
1849 1,043 905 64,251
1850 787 570 94,106
1851 1,150 900 102,140
1852 658 607 67,985
1853 419 354 62,788
1854 332 326 52,212
1855 235 239 52,731
1856 325 293 49,806
1857 354 358 54,074
1858 329 298 43,836
1859 364 305 40,256
1860 430 350 42,912
1861 446 335 73,077
1862 542 411 47,458
1863 607 451 45,477
1864 413 370 55,265
1865 774 586 52,137
1866 481 372 38,131
1867 488 311 44,347
54,767 27,609 3,713,726
Assuming that the Society constantly employs the same number of officers,
and that they are always maintained in the same condition of activity, it
is difficult to account for the disparity displayed by the above-quoted
figures. It would almost seem that the mendicity constabulary were
gifted with a prescience of what was about to happen; that they know, by
the barking of dogs or some other unmistakable token, when “the beggars
are coming to town,” and sallied out, as fishermen do at the approach of
herrings or mackerel, prepared, and fully determined to make a good haul.
It is a pity that, despite the good work it accomplishes, the Society for
the Suppression of Mendicity should have weighty reasons for lamenting
the falling-off of public support it has of late experienced. Nothing
could be more promising than its launching. It took the field with a
staff of eight constables only, and an income of 4,384_l._; nor could it
be said to disappoint the expectations of its patrons. In its first year
of operation it prosecuted 385 professional vagrants. Its success
progressed. After a lapse of twenty-five years, in 1842 we find it with
an income of 6,576_l._; and that prosperity had not dulled its energy
appears from the fact that in the year last mentioned there occurred, in
the deep waters where that slippery and voracious fish, the incorrigible
beggar, lurks for prey, the splendid catch of over thirteen hundred.
Encouraged by so fair a stroke of business, and the kindness and
generosity of an appreciative public, the Society then added a new branch
to their business—the begging-letter branch; which, it should be
understood, did not originally come within the scope of its operations in
any shape.
At the expiration of another quarter of a century, however, we find that,
instead of an increase of income to the extent of one-third, as occurred
in the first quarter of a century of the Society’s existence, its
resources have fallen off to the extent of nearly one-half, as compared
with the income of 1842.
This is as it should not be. As has been shown, feeding the deserving
poor as well as punishing the inveterate vagrant comprises a prominent
feature of the Society’s business, and this it is impossible to do
without adequate funds. It might be supposed that the passing of the
Houseless Poor Act would have diminished the number of applicants to this
and other charitable societies; but there is a large class of persons
temporarily thrown out of work to whom the casual wards of workhouses are
useless, and who do not apply for assistance there. The number of this
class who applied with tickets at the Society’s office during the past
year was more _than double the number of such applicants in the preceding
year_, being, in 1866, 4,378; but in 1867, 10,532. Among these poor
persons 44,347 meals, consisting of 7,389 four-pound loaves, upwards of
four tons of cheese and 785 gallons of soup, have been distributed. In
addition to this amount of food, 65_l._ 7_s._, in small sums of money,
has been given to those whose cases seemed suitable for such relief.
The apprehended cases were 644, as compared with 693 such cases in 1866;
but though a diminished constabulary force was employed for part of the
year, yet nearly as large a number of old offenders was committed by the
magistrate, being 311 compared with 372 in 1866. The number of
begging-letters referred to the office for inquiry during the past year
was 2,019, being somewhat fewer than the return of such applications for
the year 1866. Of the 2,019 letters 790 were from unknown applicants;
620 from persons previously known to the Society’s officials, but
requiring a more recent investigation; and 609 from persons too well
known to require any investigation.
The following cases that have occurred during the past year will show the
mode in which the Society deals with the very different classes of
applicants brought within the sphere of its operations:
“No. 617. F. J.—This young man, 24 years of age, came to the office
with a subscriber’s ticket. He stated that he had been employed last
as a bookkeeper at Manchester, and left that situation in April, and
had since been in London seeking a situation, in which he had failed,
and having no friends here, had become destitute. He was a
well-spoken single man, and appeared to be truthful in his statements
and anxious to return to Manchester, where he had relatives who would
assist him. At the instance of the presiding manager some old
clothes were given him, which improved his appearance, and thirty
shillings were handed to a constable to pay his fare, which was done,
and the balance was given to him. A few days after he wrote from
Manchester a letter, in which he stated that he had every prospect of
obtaining employment, and expressed much gratitude for what had been
done for him at this office.”
“No. 883. S. F.—This woman, 37 years of age, applied to the Society
with a subscriber’s ticket, alleging her distress to have been caused
by the desertion of her husband and her own inability to procure
employment, owing to the want of decent clothing. She was sent to
the Society’s oakum-room to work, and while there saved enough money
to purchase several articles of wearing apparel. Inquiry was made;
and it being found that her statements were true and her character
good, a situation was found her, in which she still is, apparently
giving satisfaction to her employers, and likely to obtain a
respectable living for the future.”
“No. 169,150. S. W. G.—This poor woman, the widow of a labourer, and
aged 45 years, had done her best to bring up her family in credit, by
keeping a small coal and greengrocery shop, making ginger-beer, &c.
during the summer months; and several of the children were nearly
providing for themselves, when she lost her sight, and was found in a
state of distress. Her eldest daughter had been obliged to leave her
situation to look to the house; but having a knowledge of the
sewing-machine and a prospect of obtaining work at home, it was
decided to recommend the case for liberal relief, in order that a
machine might be obtained and the daughter thus enabled to assist in
rearing the younger children at home, which object there is reason to
hope has been accomplished.”
“No. 54,494. C. T., _alias_ S.—A well-dressed woman was apprehended
on a warrant, charging her with obtaining charitable contributions by
false pretences; she had been known to the Society’s officers for
years, and a number of complaints had been lodged at the office
against her during that time; when apprehended on previous occasions
no one could be found willing to appear against her. In the present
instance she had applied to a lady residing at Rutland-gate for a
loan of 2_l._ to enable her to take her brother to Scotland, whom she
represented as having just left the Brompton Hospital very ill, and
that she had been advised to get him to his native air, where they
had friends. To strengthen her appeal she mentioned the names of two
or three persons known to the lady to whom she was applying, and as
having been sent by one of them to her; on the faith of the
representations made she was assisted with 2_l._ 6_s._; but
subsequent inquiry convinced this lady that the statement was false.
At the time the prisoner was taken into custody she had 5_l._ 8_s._
5½_d._ on her person; and being made acquainted with the charge
confessed herself guilty of these offences, and offered to repay the
money; but on the case being stated to the magistrate he sentenced
her to three months’ imprisonment, and the money found in her
possession to be applied to her maintenance while there.”
“No. 42,064. T. B., with a number of aliases, was again apprehended
by one of the Society’s constables; he had been known as a
begging-letter impostor for upwards of twenty years, and during that
period had been three times transported, and as many times liberated
on tickets-of-leave. On this occasion (in company with a woman whom
he represented as a district visitor) he applied to a gentleman
residing in Eaton-square, stating he was ‘Mr. Bond,’ one of the
overseers of St. Marylebone parish, and gave in his card to that
effect. On obtaining an interview, he said he and the lady with him
had interested themselves on behalf of a ‘Mrs. Cole,’ a widow with
six children, a native of Ledbury in Herefordshire, who wished to
return home, where she would be able to obtain a living for herself
and family, and he was seeking subscriptions to purchase the family a
little clothing and funds to defray the expense of their transit.
The gentleman knowing Ledbury well, and believing the prisoner’s
statement to be true, gave him 10_s._; but afterwards finding that he
had been imposed on, obtained a warrant for his apprehension, and the
case being clearly proved, he was sentenced to three months’
imprisonment; and the magistrate remarked that a more hardened
criminal had never been brought before him, and that the Home
Secretary should be applied to to cause him to finish his unexpired
term of two years and three months.”
“No. 54,889. M. W.—A woman with an infant in her arms was
apprehended by one of the Society’s constables for endeavouring to
obtain money by false pretences from a gentleman residing in
Portland-place, by stating that her husband was at the Bournemouth
Sanatorium, and produced a letter purporting to be from the medical
officer of the institution, which was as follows: ‘National
Sanatorium, Bournemouth, Hants.—The resident surgeon wishes to inform
Mrs. W. that her husband, having ruptured a blood-vessel, is in a
very precarious state. James W. is very desirous of seeing his wife,
and begs she will come as early as possible.’ This note was signed
as by the resident medical officer. She stated to the prosecutor
that having no means of paying her railway fare, she had applied to
him for assistance, as he had been kind to her husband on previous
occasions. Being apprehended and detained for inquiries, she
admitted the truth of the charge made against her; and the case being
clearly proved, she was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. The
prisoner and her husband had been carrying on this system of
imposition for a long time, but owing to parties declining to come
forward to prosecute, had not previously been convicted.”
But there remains yet to notice one member of the begging-letter-writing
fraternity, compared with whom all the rest are mere innocent and
harmless scribblers. After an experience so long and varied, and so many
conflicts sharp and severe with their natural enemies the officers of the
“Society,” and so many exposures and defeats, it might be reasonably
hoped that the professional beggar whose genius takes an epistolary turn
must find his ingenuity well-nigh exhausted; but, as recent revelations
have disclosed, the machinery brought against him for his suppression has
but sharpened his wits and rendered him more formidable than ever.
Although but recently discovered, it is hard to say for how long a time
this diabolical desire for swindling the unwary has existed. Very
possibly, many a “dodge” of minor calibre has been invented and run the
length of its tether, and died the death of all dodges, while the one in
question has lurked in the dark, and grown fat and prospered.
It would be next to impossible for the imagination most fertile in wicked
invention to conceive anything more devilish and mischievous, or an evil
that might be perpetrated with less fear of detection. The mainspring of
the pretty scheme is not to impose on the benevolence and credulity of
the living, but to blast and vilify the character of the dead. To
obliterate from the hearts of those who were nearest and dearest to
him—the husband dead and buried—all kindly remembrance of him; to tear,
as it were, from his poor honest body the white shroud in which tender
hands had enveloped it, and show him to have lived and died a traitor, a
hypocrite, and an impostor, false to that very last breath with which he
bade his wife, his “only darling,” farewell; and this that some
cold-blooded ruffian may extort from the wronged man’s duped indignant
survivors a few miserable pounds or shillings, as the case may be.
The process by which the villany in question may be accomplished is much
more simple than would at first appear. The prime condition of the
impostor’s success is that he must reside at a long distance from those
it is his intention to dupe. The swindler lives in France or Germany,
sometimes as far away as America. The first “move” is to look into the
newspaper obituary notices for a likely victim. A gentleman who dies
young, leaving a wife and a numerous family to bemoan their bitter
bereavement, is not uncommonly the case fixed on. If, during his
lifetime, he was a man who, from his station in life, must have been
tolerably well known, so much the better. It is a woman who writes the
letter. She writes of course to the individual as though not in the
least suspecting that he is dead. The following _genuine_ copy of such a
letter will, better than anything, illustrate the cold, cruel, subtle
villany essential to the success of the “Dead-man’s lurk,” as in the
profession it is styled:
“My ever-dearest Robert,—It is only after enduring the sickening
disappointment that has attended my last three letters sent to the
old address, that I venture to write to your private abode, in the
fervent hope that this my desperate appeal to your oft-tried
generosity may fall into no other hands but your own.
“I cannot think that my boy’s father can have grown cold towards her
whose whole life is devoted to him, who fled from home and friends,
and took up her abode in a foreign land and amongst strangers, that
her darling might not be troubled,—that his _home_ might be peace.
Alas! what is _my_ home? But I will not upbraid you. Were I alone,
I would be content to die rather than cause you a single pang of
uneasiness; but, as my dear Robert knows, I am _not_ alone. God
still spares our boy to me, though I much fear that the doctor’s
prediction that he would get the better of his ailments when he had
turned the age of ten will not be verified. Sometimes as I sit of
nights—long, weary, thoughtful nights—watching my sick darling, and
thinking of those old times of brief bitter sweetness, I wish that
you could see him, so like your own dear self; but the thought is at
once hushed, when I reflect on the pain it would cause you to
contemplate our poor _fatherless_ boy. I am almost tempted to thank
God that he cannot remain much longer on earth; but it is hard,
cruelly hard, to see him suffer from _want_ as well as from his
painful malady. Do, for the sake of the _old times_, send me a
little money, though only a few pounds. There is no other resource
for us but the workhouse. At any rate, pray send me an answer to
this, and relieve the dreadful suspense that haunts me.
“P.S. As I have been, from reasons too painful to disclose to you,
compelled to quit the lodgings in V.-street, please direct
Post-office, —. Yours, ever true and faithful,
ELIZABETH —.”
As it happened, the gentleman to whom this villanous epistle was
addressed had, till within a few years of his demise, resided in a
far-away quarter of the globe, and under such conditions as rendered a
ten-years-ago intimacy with any English Elizabeth utterly impossible; but
unfortunately his survivors were content to treat the attempted imposture
with silent contempt, and a likely opportunity of bringing to proper
punishment one of a gang of the most pestiferous order of swindlers it is
possible to conceive was lost. It was probably only the _very_ peculiar
and exceptionally conclusive evidence that the letter could not apply to
Mr. Robert —, that saved his friends from painful anxiety, and perhaps
robbery. It is so much less troublesome to hush-up such a matter than to
investigate it. To be sure, no one would have for a moment suspected,
from the precise and proper behaviour of the man dead and gone, that he
could ever have been guilty of such wickedness and folly; but it is so
hard to read the human heart. Such things have happened; and now that
one calls to mind—
That is the most poisonous part of it,—“now that one calls to mind!”
What is easier than to call to mind, out of the ten thousand remembrances
of a man whose society we have shared for twenty years or more, one or
two acts that at the time were regarded as “strange whims,” but now,
regarded in the light that the damnable letter sheds on them, appear as
parts of the very business so unexpectedly brought to light? Perhaps the
man was privately charitable, and in benevolent objects expended a
portion of his income, without making mention of how, when, and where, or
keeping any sort of ledger account. How his means so mysteriously
dwindled in his hands was a puzzle even to his most intimate
friends—_now_ it is apparent where the money went! But there, it is no
use discussing that now; he has gone to answer for all his sins, and it
is to be devoutly wished that God, in the infinite stretch of His mercy,
will forgive him even this enormous sin. Meanwhile it will never do to
have this base creature coming as a tramping beggar, perhaps with her
boy, and knocking at the door, desperately determined on being cared for
by the man who was the cause of her ruin and her banishment. Better to
send her ten pounds, with a brief note to the effect that Mr. — is now
dead, and it will be useless her troubling again. This is what did _not_
happen in the case quoted, and for the reasons given; but it might, and
in very many cases it doubtless has happened; and it would be worth a
whole year’s catch of common begging-letter impostors if the Society for
the Suppression of Mendicity could trap a member of the “Dead-lurk” gang,
and hand him over to the tender mercies of the law.