tinate mistrust, and delayed the
satisfaction of his claims. In vain he followed his judges with his
complaints and flatteries, chanting their virtues in every key: "Thou
art the father of the unfortunate, the husband of the widow, the brother
of the orphan, the clothing of the motherless: enable me to proclaim
thy name as a law throughout the land. Good lord, guide without caprice,
great without littleness, thou who destroyest falsehood and causest
truth to be, come at the words of my mouth; I speak, listen and do
justice. O generous one, generous of the generous, destroy the cause of
my trouble; here I am, uplift me; judge me, for behold me a suppliant
before thee." If he were an eloquent speaker and the judge were inclined
to listen, he was willingly heard, but his cause made no progress, and
delays, counted on by his adversary, effected his ruin. The religious
law, no doubt, prescribed equitable treatment for all devotees of
Osiris, and condemned the slightest departure from justice as one of the
gravest sins, even in the case of a great noble, or in that of the
king himself; but how could impartiality be shown when the one was the
recognized protector, the "master" of the culprit, while the plaintiff
was a vagabond, attached to no one, "a man without a master"!

The population of the towns included many privileged persons other than
the soldiers, priests, or those engaged in the service of the
temples. Those employed in royal or feudal administration, from the
"superintendent of the storehouse" to the humblest scribe, though
perhaps not entirely exempt from forced labour, had but a small part
of it to bear.* These _employes_ constituted a middle class of several
grades, and enjoyed a fixed income and regular employment: they were
fairly well educated, very self-satisfied, and always ready to declare
loudly their superiority over any who were obliged to gain their
living by manual labour. Each class of workmen recognized one or more
chiefs,--the shoemakers, their master-shoemakers, the masons, their
master-masons, the blacksmiths, their master-blacksmiths,--who
looked after their interests and represented them before the local
authorities.**

* This is a fair inference from the indirect testimony of
the Letters: the writer, in enumerating the liabilities of
the various professions, implies by contrast that the scribe
(i.e. the _employe_ in general) is not subject to them, or
is subject to