ay tithe before coming into the world,
and he went on paying tithe even after he had gone out of it. This is
a hard saying, but nevertheless a simple truth. Throughout his
journey from the cradle to the grave, the Manxman paid tithe on all he
inherited, on all he had, on all he did, on all his wife did, and on
all he left behind him. We have the equivalent of this in England at
the present hour, but it was yet more tyrannical, and infinitely more
ludicrous, in the Isle of Man down to the year 1839. It is only vanity
and folly and vexation of spirit to quarrel with the modern English
taxgatherer; you are sure to go the wall, with humiliation and with
disgrace. It was not always so when taxes were paid in kind. There was,
at least, the satisfaction of cheating. The Manx people could not always
deny themselves that satisfaction. For instance, they were required to
pay tithe of herring as soon as the herring boats were brought above
full sea mark, and there were ways of counting known to the fishermen
with which the black-coated arithmeticians of the Church were not able
to cope. A man paid tithe on such goods and even such clothes as his
wife possessed on their wedding day, and young brides became wondrous
wise in the selection for the vicarage of the garments that were out of
fashion. A corpse-present was demanded over the grave of a dead man out
of the horses and cattle whereof he died possessed, and dying men left
verbal wills which consigned their broken-winded horses and dry cows to
the mercy and care of the clergyman. You will not marvel much that such
dealings led to disputes, sometimes to quarrels, occasionally to riots.
In my boyhood I heard old people over the farm-house fire chuckle
and tell of various wise doings, to outwit the parson. One of these
concerned the oats harvest. When the oats were in sheaf, the parson's
cart came up, driven by the sumner, the parson's official servant. The
gate of the field was thrown open, and honestly and religiously one
sheaf out of every ten was thrown into the cart. But the husbandman had
been thrifty in advance. The parson's sheaves had all been grouped thick
about the gate, and they were the shortest, and the thinnest, and the
blackest, and the dirtiest, and the poorest that the field had yielded.
Similar were the doings at the digging of the potatoes, but the scenes
of recrimination which often ensued were usually confined to the farmer
and the sumner. More outrageous conten