Fable LXI The Dog and the Sheep
The Dog sued the Sheep for a debt, of which the Kite and the Wolf were to be judges. They, without debating long upon the matter, or making any scruple for want of evidence, gave sentence for the plaintiff; who immediately tore the poor Sheep in pieces, and divided the spoil with the unjust judges.
Morals
We cannot reasonably hope for justice in a court, where the judges are interested in the decision.
Whose life is safe, if tried before a judge,
That to the hapless pris’ner bears a grudge?
Whose property secur’d from lawless fury,
If any private int’rest warps the jury?
Reflection
Deplorable are the times, when open bare-faced villany is protected and encouraged, when innocence is obnoxious, honesty contemptible, and it is reckoned criminal to espouse the cause of virtue. Men originally entered into covenants and simple compacts with each other for the promotion of their happiness and well-being, for the establishment of justice and public peace. How comes it then that they look stupidly on, and tamely acquiesce, when wicked men pervert this end, and establish an arbitrary tyranny of their own upon the foundation of fraud and oppression? Among beasts, who are incapable of being civilised by social laws, it is no strange thing to see innocent helpless sheep fall a prey to dogs, wolves, and kites: But it is amazing how mankind could ever sink down to such a low degree of base cowardice, as to suffer some of the worst of their species to usurp a power over them, to supersede the righteous laws of good government, and to exercise all kinds of injustice and hardship in gratifying their own vicious lusts. Wherever such enormities are practised, it is when a few rapacious statesmen combine together, to get and secure the power in their own hands, and agree to divide the spoils among themselves. For as long as the cause is to be tried only among themselves, no question but they will always vouch for each other. But, at the same time, it is hard to determine which resemble brutes most, they in acting, or the people in suffering them to act their vile selfish schemes.