I on the contrary affirm that I am still blind; for when I lost the use of my eyes, I saw in my house various
chattels and valuable goods: but now, though he swears I am cured of my blindness, I am not able to see a single thing in it."
And yet they were not slaves, not
chattels. By a sarcasm of law and phrase they were freemen.
Old lodgers like myself soon grow as attached to our
chattels as to a kinsman.
We, therefore, order and strictly enjoin, by these presents, all of the inhabitants, as well of the above-named district as of all the other Districts, both old men and young men, as well as all the lads of ten years of age, to attend at the Church at Grand Pre, on Friday, the fifth instant, at three of the clock in the afternoon, that we may impart to them what we are ordered to communicate to them; declaring that no excuse will be admitted on any pretence whatever, on pain of forfeiting goods and
chattels, in default of real estate.
After every successful trade he generally passed a longer or shorter term in jail; for when a poor man without goods or
chattels has the inveterate habit of swapping, it follows naturally that he must have something to swap; and having nothing of his own, it follows still more naturally that he must swap something belonging to his neighbors.
About this time the father of our Chrysostom died, and he was left heir to a large amount of property in
chattels as well as in land, no small number of cattle and sheep, and a large sum of money, of all of which the young man was left dissolute owner, and indeed he was deserving of it all, for he was a very good comrade, and kind-hearted, and a friend of worthy folk, and had a countenance like a benediction.
In the meantime Marian and Izz Huett had journeyed onward with the
chattels of the ploughman in the direction of their land of Canaan--the Egypt of some other family who had left it only that morning.
I did not appear but through this agent I forced the foreclosure, and but few days (no more, believe me, than the law allowed) were given John Claverhouse to remove his goods and
chattels from the premises.
This fully explains what is the nature of a slave, and what are his capacities; for that being who by nature is nothing of himself, but totally another's, and is a man, is a slave by nature; and that man who is the property of another, is his mere
chattel, though he continues a man; but a
chattel is an instrument for use, separate from the body.
She was the
chattel of the Minota's splendid skipper.
This same gentleman, having heard of the fame of George's invention, took a ride over to the factory, to see what this intelligent
chattel had been about.
Primitive communism,
chattel slavery, serf slavery, and wage slavery were necessary stepping-stones in the evolution of society.