The Law Locks Up the Man or Woman -- Anonymous

(Poem #1120) The Law Locks Up the Man or Woman The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose from off the common; But lets the greater felon loose Who steals the common from the goose. -- Anonymous

I've always thought of this one as a nursery rhyme that didn't quite make
it. More fairly, it's balanced somewhere between traditional nursery rhymes
like 'The Lion and the Unicorn' and biting social commentary like
Cleghorn's "The Golf Links" [Poem #216], with a dash of the proverb thrown
in.

The reason today's poem never made it as a nursery rhyme is fairly obvious -
it's too explicit. Traditional 'hidden meaning' nursery rhymes were slyly
humorous, veiling their ridicule in allusion. Of course, at the time of
writing, the allusion would have been totally transparent, and ensured that
the rhyme got passed around with a wink and a nudge in taverns and on street
corners. Later generations would see it merely as an amusing children's
poem, but there again it would get handed down from parent to child, until
it was ubiquitous.

On the other hand, today's poem's meaning is clear in general terms. It's
even relevant enough that people can still relate to it. However, the
Inclosure Act to which it refers was passed hundreds of years ago; the poem
is no longer current, and loses something thereby. And, lacking the enforced
whimsy of the more allusive nursery rhymes, it was never seen as a
children's poem - rather than being passed down as attractive nonsense when
it lost its topicality, it faded into a sort of semiobscurity.

One aspect of the nursery rhyme it *has* shared is alteration via the folk
process. There are several versions floating around, from minor variants
like the substitution of 'villain' for 'felon', to the following from the
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations:

  "The fault is great in man or woman
   Who steals a goose from off a common:
   But what can plead that man's excuse
   Who steals a common from a goose?"

           --The Tickler Magazine, 1 Feb. 1821.

Like Swift's poem on lesser fleas, though, I am fairly confident that the
folk process has improved the original - poems that are handed down orally
tend to undergo a rather ruthless evolutionary winnowing. If they're not
good enough, they don't get repeated, and if a mutated form is more quotable
or pleasing, it has a very good chance of replacing the original.

martin

Links:
 An alt.quotations thread on the poem:

http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=dpbsmith-B90F%40news.cis.dfn.de

 The Inclosure Act, in context
  [broken link] http://www.coprolite.care4free.net/page70.html
  http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010136ernle/010136ch7.htm