“468. BURGLARY—JOB 24:16”

Burglary—Job_24:16

Burglary seems to have been one of the most ancient of the arts, but not one in which much improvement has been made. The Book of Job furnishes the earliest description in existence of a house-robbery. In this we have no account of bolts and locks being forced or picked by crowbars and jimmies, or of door-panels being cut out, but of the burglars digging through the walls of the house. “In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the day-time.” This implies that the houses in Job’s time and country were of such light structure or penetrable materials, as we still find in some countries, and which render the making of an opening in the wall the most easy mode of access to persons with evil intentions. The houses were probably of clay or mud, simply dried by the sun in the process of construction, and, therefore, easily dug through, although affording adequate security from the weather to the inmates. This was the type of a common eastern dwelling in the mind of a Roman. Hence the elder Pliny speculates that the Oriental took his first idea of an abode for himself and family from the swallow, and in imitation of his feathered instructor, made his first attempts with mud. Whatever we think of this, it is certain that the dwellings of the mass of the population, that is, of the poorer people, throughout Asia are still, as they always have been, of clay or mud. The dwellings which come within this class, are of three principal sorts. The first and frailest, is a framework of wicker hurdles thickly daubed over with mud. In another and more enduring structure, the walls are composed of successive layers of mud, each layer being left to dry before another is laid on. A still superior house frame is made of sun-dried bricks; that is, with cakes of trodden clay or mud, shaped in a mould and dried in the sun. Broken straw is usually mixed with these bricks in order to strengthen them; but the poorer people have but little straw, if any, in their bricks, or earthen mud-cakes, which they employ for this purpose. It would be too expensive, straw being the provender of cattle.

There can be little doubt as to the fitness of this interpretation, for in the fourth chapter Eliphaz expressly alludes to “houses of clay.”

Irish Mud Cabin

Cottages of this construction are not peculiar to the East, though perhaps derived from thence. In Devon and Cornwall many very comfortable cottages are built of mud, after the very process which we have seen in use in the East. These are called “cob-walls;” and many years ago there appeared in the “Quarterly Review” an ingenious paper tracing them to the Phoenicians. Inferior examples of the same kind of wad may be seen in the mud huts of the Irish cotter; and so near to London as Woking Common, there are many examples of huts built with mud by “squatters,” and roofed with turf cut from the Common.

Not only the same kind of dwellings, but the same mode of breaking into them for plunder, still exists in the East, especially in India. The following passage from a work now but little known, Note: Observations on the Present Political State of India. By Alexander Fraser Tytler. 2 vols. London, 1815. will interest the reader. The cottages described are not exactly of the construction indicated; but the mud-built dwellings in India are penetrated in the same manner.

“The huts of the Bengalees afford no security against the attacks of robbers. They are built with light bamboo frames, covered with a kind of reed, bruised flat, and plaited into mats. The floors are generally raised about a foot or two from the ground by layers of clay beaten down. The thieves, who are denominated Sindeals or hole-cutters, easily undermine these floors from without, or cut holes through the mats, sufficiently large to admit their entering, and by these means carry away property, generally to a very small amount…. In the earthen floor it is not uncommon for the Bengalee to bury in a clay vessel the little money or jewels he may possess; and sometimes the servants of the house give information of this to the dacoits. There are many instances of the dacoits having tortured the poor natives till they gave information of the place where the money was concealed. In one village in particular, which I entered immediately after a dacoity Note: Dacoity. A species of robbery practised by large armed gangs during the nights. had been committed, I recollect being shown two stakes, with a shallow pit dug between them, over which they had suspended the master of the house, and had actually roasted him over a slow fire until he pointed out the place where his little treasure was hid. He persisted so long in concealing it, that very little life remained. He was only released on showing them a small hole in the wall, neatly plastered over with clay; from this they took all that he possessed, and he died the next day.”

Mr. Tytler adds, that “so frequent in former times were the visits of these miscreants, that very few of the lower classes thought it worth their while to amass a little money; and even at the present day, all their little gains are immediately spent in poojahs (the worship of their idols, and other ostentatious ceremonies. This disposition has grown upon them; and it will be long before a sufficient confidence in our protection, and an encouragement to industry, will induce them to become independent, or to live otherwise than from day to day.”

We thus see how the insecurity of their little property may prevent a people from bettering their condition by the careful conservation and use of their earnings. If they cannot with reasonable certainty calculate on the future use of their means, they will recklessly expend them as they accrue, upon the objects which please them most. This will occur from whatever cause such insecurity arises; but it is well to note that in this case it arises in a great measure from their dwellings being such as robbers can “dig through in the night.”

Autor: JOHN KITTO