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And then there was a scuffling heard on the stairs a subdued, decent undertaker's scuffling as some hour or two before had been heard the muffled click of a hammer. Feet scuffled down the stairs, outside the dining-room door, and along the passage. And then the door was opened, and in low, decent undertaker's voice, red-nosed, sombre, well-fed Mr. Mortmain told them that they were ready.
Here it was that Cardinal Richelieu withstood them: he maintained that, the ecclesiastics and the brotherhoods not having the right to hold property in France by mortmain, the king tolerated their possession, of his grace, but he exacted the payment of seignorial dues.
Under the sway of this feeling, and especially of the terrors infused by priests at deathbeds, mortmain had become in Venice, as in many other parts of the world, one of the most serious of evils.
The world of Islam is held in mortmain by the prophet. It cannot advance beyond the forms in which he embodied his message without denying the claims he made for himself.
You have done, I trust, what you can to care for them, even from your grave: you think sometimes of a poetical figure of speech amid the dry technical phrases of English law: you know what is meant by the law of Mortmain; and you like to think that even your dead hand may be felt to be kindly intermeddling yet in the affairs of those who were your dearest: that some little sum, slender, perhaps, but as liberal as you could make it, may come in periodically when it is wanted, and seem like the gift of a thoughtful heart and a kindly hand which are far away.
It leaves acquisition free; but it secures what it acquires. Whatever advantages are obtained by a state proceeding on these maxims, are locked fast as in a sort of family settlement; grasped as in a kind of mortmain for ever.
The Irish Parliament might still interfere with contracts, or might validate contracts now held to be void as contrary to public policy. They might defeat the Mortmain Acts. They might deal as they thought fit with internal trade; and the great industries of Belfast and its neighbourhood might find their views on trade questions of no avail.
And We do further by these presents, for Us, Our Heirs and Successors, will, ordain and grant, to the said Governors, Principal and Fellows, and their Successors, by the name aforesaid, full authority and free license to have, take, purchase, and hold, to them and their Successors to and for the use of the said College, any goods, chattels or personal property whatsoever; and also that by the name aforesaid they shall be able and capable in law, notwithstanding any Statutes or Statute of mortmain, law, usage or custom whatsoever to the contrary, to have, take, purchase and hold to them and their Successors to and for the use of said College, any other Manors, Rectories, Advowsons, Messuages, Lands, tenements, rents and hereditaments of what kind, nature, or quality soever, over and above the manors, rectories, advowsons, messuages, lands, tenements, rents and hereditaments in the said Letter Patent mentioned of the yearly value of six thousand pounds above all charges as in the said Letters Patent is set forth, but not for the purpose or with the view of reselling the same; provided always, that the whole shall not exceed the yearly value of Twelve thousand pounds above all charges, such annual value to be calculated and ascertained at the period of taking, purchasing or acquiring the same;
The influence of Government, thus divided in appearance between the Court and the leaders of parties, became in many cases an accession rather to the popular than to the royal scale; and some part of that influence, which would otherwise have been possessed as in a sort of mortmain and unalienable domain, returned again to the great ocean from whence it arose, and circulated among the people.
The disastrous state of the finances, brought about by the shameful dilapidations of the court, occasioned a deficit which it was necessary to make good. This consideration, joined to the spirit of cupidity, jealous of the estates of the clergy, immediately caused every eye to turn towards that mortmain property, in order to employ it in the liquidation of the national debt.
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