Rollo in Geneva by Jacob Abbott

Author:Jacob Abbott [Abbott, Jacob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Geneva (Switzerland) -- Description and travel
Published: 2008-05-05T16:00:00+00:00

"Steamboats are certainly not propelled by sails," said the lawyer, "but yet we often apply the word sailing to them. We say, for instance, that a certain steamer will sail on such or such a day. So we say, There was no news from such or such a place when the steamer sailed."

"But it seems to me," said Rollo, "that the question is not what people call it, but what it really is. The going of a steamboat is certainly not sailing, in any sense."

It was quite ingenious arguing on Rollo's part, it must be acknowledged; but then it was wholly out of order for him to argue the question at all. He should have confined himself strictly to a simple statement of the point, since, as his father was not present to defend his side of the question, it was obviously not fair that Rollo should urge and advocate his.

"It might, at first view," said Mr. Hall, "seem to be as you say, and that the question would be solely what the steamer actually does. But, on reflection, you will see that it is not exactly so. Contracts and promises are made in language; and in making them, people use language as other people use it, and it is to be interpreted in that way. For instance: suppose a lodging-house keeper in the country should agree to furnish a lady a room in the summer where the sun did not come in at all, and then should give her one on the south side of the house, which was intolerably hot, and should claim that he had fulfilled his agreement because the sun did not itself come into the room at all, but only shone in; that would not be a good defence. We must interpret contracts and promises according to the ordinary use and custom of people in the employment of language.

"Still," said Mr. Hall, "although we certainly do apply the simple term sailing to a steamer, I hardly think that a trip in a steamer on a regular and established route would be called, according to the ordinary and established use of language, taking a sail. Was that the promise—that one party would go with the other to take a sail on the lake?"

"Yes, sir," said Rollo; "he promised to go and take a sail with me on the lake, as far as I wanted to go."

"Then," said Mr. Hall, "I should think, on the whole, that, in such a place as this, where there are so many regular sail boats, and where excursions on the lake in them are so common and so well recognized as a distinct amusement, the phrase taking a sail ought to be held to mean going in a sail boat, and that making a voyage in a steamer would not be fulfilling the promise."

Rollo was extremely delighted in having thus gained his case, and he went back to report the result to his father, in a state of great exultation.

After communicating

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