The Angry Exile: Is this your car, son

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Sunday 28 March 2010

Is this your car, son - redux.

There's a point about Lewis Hamilton's thrashing of a car getting him into a bit of trouble that Mrs Exile thinks didn't come across very well in yesterday's post. As the papers all said his car was impounded but of course it's really not his car at all. What would a Briton living in Switzerland being doing owning and running a car in Melbourne? The car was of course a loaner, apparently courtesy of a local dealership. So what these tough 'anti-hoon- laws have achieved here is fuck all apart from confiscating the private property of a wholly innocent third party. Lewis Hamilton is a very wealthy man and will not suffer from even the most OTT fine any court here will be able to impose, and since he won't have a Victorian licence points are a non-issue as well. It will be an embarrassing incident for him but that's at least as much thanks to the media as the police, the courts or these ridiculous laws. The only person who's really being punished is the owner of the car, which being a company is probably not suffering too much but nonetheless has had it's property confiscated despite having done absolutely nothing wrong with it.

This isn't the first time this has happened or even the first time I've blogged on the subject. Early last month I mentioned the story of a Perth doctor whose Lamborghini was confiscated - I'm going to stop saying 'impounded' because it is fucking confiscation - because his mechanic was alleged to have been speeding in it.

Most egregious of all the law allows - possibly even insists, I'm not sure - that at a certain point above the speed limit the cops impound your car for two days... this applies even when a driver gets tugged and it's not his car...

...

To quote Vincent Vega,

What's more chickenshit than fucking with a man's automobile? I mean, don't fuck with another man's vehicle.
Especially when it's pretty bloody obvious that it wasn't even him driving it. Fuck knows what they do if it's a rental, but it's something visitors could bear in mind if the hire company piss them about. All you'd need to do is give it a good thrashing on your way to the airport at the end of your stay, and when the cops stop you and impound it get a taxi the rest of the way and send Avis a fax from the terminal telling them that their hire car is with the police. And I'm only half joking, because it's probably going to take more than one obviously wealthy car owner being fucked up by an unjust and retarded law to get something done about it.

This wasn't what I had in mind but it does demonstrate how unjust this law is. What if it's not a rich man's toy like a Lamborghini but a tradesman's work vehicle, and he can't work until he gets it back? What if it's not a dealership loaner but 'Mum's taxi' needed for all sorts of errands that would then have to wait for at least two days? Supporters might argue that the innocent owners of the confiscated vehicles aren't that innocent since they've got a responsibility to make sure that the law is obeyed, but short of sitting in the back seat and nagging how the hell is that even possible? It makes about as much sense as taking a landlord's house because his tenants were doing something illegal in it or, since we're talking about driving offences, closing a privately owned toll road because someone was speeding on it.

However you cut it a law allowing summary confiscation of private property is a bit iffy, but allowing the confiscation of property belonging to third parties who aren't even aware an alleged offence has been committed is simply fucking outrageous. Sooner or later, if it hasn't happened already, someone's going to lose real money from lost earnings because the police have confiscated a vehicle driven by someone else. Bear in mind that potentially the driver could go to court and win, but the car can't be retrospectively un-confiscated. The use of the vehicle for that time has been lost forever along with any income it would have earned its owner. I very much hope that eventually someone sues the police and Justice Department for lost earnings.

It's a shitty, unreasonable law and it needs to go.

1 comment:

microdave said...: I doubt that the dealer (or even Mercedes) are particularly bothered - think of the free publicity.

I remember a few years ago when another F1 driver got busted for doing 140+ mph in a DIESEL BMW. It was claimed afterwards that BMW put him up to it just to show how good their new baby was....

Agreed that it's a shit law though.; 29 March 2010 at 01:22

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Sunday 28 March 2010

Is this your car, son - redux.

1 comment:

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