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SELFISHNESS IN GIVING. SPURIOUS

BENEVOLENCE.

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Throw in a sprat to catch a salmon.

To give an apple where there is an orchard.

The hen's egg aft gaes to the ha'

To bring the guse's egg awa'.- Scotch.

"He gives an egg to get a chicken" (Dutch).' Giving is fishing" (Italian)." "To one who has a pie in the oven you may give a bit of your cake" (French).3

Have a horse of thine own, and thou may'st borrow another's.

-Welsh.

"People don't give black-puddings to one who kills no pigs" (Spanish). In Spain it is usual, when a pig is killed at home, to make black-puddings, and give some of them to one's neighbours. There is thrift in this; for black-puddings will not keep long in that

1 Hij geeft een ei, om een kucken te krijgen.

2 Donare si chiama pescare.

A celui qui a son pâté au four, on peut donner de son gateau.

A quien no mata puerco, no le dan morcilla.

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climate, and each man generally makes more than enough for his own consumption. People lend only to the rich" (French). "People give to the rich, and take from the poor" (German).2 66 He that eats capon

gets capon" (French).3

He that has a goose will get a goose.

When the child is christened you may have godfathers enough. Offers of service abound when a man no longer needs them. "When our daughter is married sons-in-law

turn up" (Spanish).*

When I am dead make me caudle.

When Tom's pitcher is broken I shall get the sherds.

Tom's generosity is like the charity of the Abbot of Bamba, who "Gives away for the good of his soul what he can't eat" (Spanish).5 The dying bequest of another worthy of the same nation is proverbial. One of his cows had strayed away and been long missing. His last orders were, that if this cow were found it should be for his children; if otherwise, it should be for God. Hence the proverb, "Let that which is lost be for God."

1 On ne prête qu'aux riches.

2 Reichen giebt man, Armen nimmt man.

3 Qui chapon mange, chapon lui vient.

A hija casada salen nos yernos.

5 El abad de Bamba, lo que no puede comer, da lo por su alma.

SELFISHNESS IN GIVING-SPURIOUS BENEVOLENCE. 115

They are free of fruit that want an orchard.

They are aye gudewilly o' their horse that hae nane.

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Scotch.

Their good-natured willingness to lend it is remarkable. 'No one is so open-handed as he who has nothing to give" (French). "He that cannot is always willing" (Italian).2

Hens are free o' horse corn. Scotch.

People are apt to be very liberal of what does not belong to them. "Broad thongs are cut from other men's leather" (Latin).3 "Of my gossip's loaf a large slice for my godson" (Spanish).*

Steal the goose, and give the giblets in alms.

"Steal the pig, and give away the pettitoes for God's sake" (Spanish)."

1 Nul n'est si large que celui qui n'a rien à donner.

2 Chi non puole, sempre vuole.

3 Ex alieno tergore lata secantur lora.

Del pan de mi compadre buen zatico á mi ahijado.
Hurtar el puerco, y dar los pies por Dios.

INGRATITUDE.

Save a thief from the gallows, and he will be the first to cut your throat.

The galley-slaves whom Don Quixote rescued repaid the favour by pelting him and his squire with stones, and stealing Sancho's ass. The French have two parallels for the English proverb. "Take a churl from the gibbet, and he will put you on it;" and, "Unhang one that is hanged, and he will hang thee."2 Observe the comprehensiveness of this second proposition: it seems to embody an old superstition not yet quite extinct, for it warns us against the danger of rescuing any man from the rope, no matter how he may have come to have his neck in the noose. An incident curiously illustrative of this doctrine was thus narrated in a Belgian newspaper, the Constitutionnel of Mons, of July 4th, 1856:

"The day before yesterday a man hanged himself at Wasmes. Another man chanced to come upon him before life was extinct, and cut him down in a state of insensibility. Presently up came some women, who

1 Ôtez un vilain du gibet, il vous y mettra.
Dépends le pendard, il te pendra.

clamorously protested against the rashness, not of the would-be suicide, but of his rescuer, and assured the latter that his only chance of escaping the dangers to which his imprudent humanity exposed him was to hang the poor wretch up again. The man was so alarmed that he was actually proceeding to do as they advised him, when fortunately the burgomaster arrived just in time to prevent that act of barbarous stupidity." This incident will at once remind the reader of the wreck scene in The Pirate. Mordaunt Merton is hastening to save Cleveland, when Bryce Snailsfoot thus remonstrates with him :- "Are you mad? You that have lived sae lang in Zetland to risk the saving of a drowning man? Wot ye not, if you bring him to life again, he will be sure to do you some capital injury?"

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Put a snake in your bosom, and when it is warm it will sting you.
Bring up a raven, and it will peck out your eyes
(Spanish, German). "Do good to a knave, and pray
God he requite thee not " (Danish).2

I taught you to swim, and now you'd drown me.

A's tint that's put into a riven dish. All is lost that is put into a broken bestowed upon a thankless person.

Scotch.

dish, or that is The Arabs say,

1 Cria el cuervo, y sacarte ha los ojos. Erziehst du dir einen Raben, so wird er dir die Augen ausgraben.

2 Giör vel imod en Skalk, og bed til Gud han lönner dig ikke.

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