A Child Called It Ebook Free

[Silvana Fleischacker]

Areyou an expert in family law with a passion for educating others? Do you want to make a tangible impact on the understanding and application of child support law in Canada? If so, we need your expertise!

Over the past several years, CanLII has developed and published a number of original open access legal commentary projects, including our Manual to British Columbia Civil Litigation and our Criminal Law Ebook. We have also had the pleasure of working with several esteemed legal professionals to publish their casebooks and practice manuals. One of the most popular of these resources is Civil Procedure and Practice in Ontario, a continually updated comprehensive guide to Ontarian civil procedure spearheaded by lead editor University of Windsor law professor Noel Semple. Upon publication of the first edition of the CPPO in 2021, it was met with critical acclaim from the Canadian legal community and received a Clawbie Award for excellence in Canadian legal commentary.

Rather than opting for mere summary of the law, Child Support Law in Canada will comprehensively explain the legislation, regulations and case law on child support in all the provinces and territories.

This new book will follow the model of Civil Procedure and Practice in Ontario, which receives over 1,200 visitors per month on CanLII. The model involves (i) chapters written by leading practitioners and experts in the field, (ii) legal research to support the author team from a dedicated team at Windsor Law, and (iii) open-access publication on CanLII.

We are looking for commitments to write chapters of approximately 25 pages for Child Support Law in Canada. The chapters can be written alone or undertaken by a team of writers. Our team of students and librarians are standing by to assist with access to research materials that will make this easy for you.

In the old days, a long, long while ago, before Our Saviour was born on earthand lay asleep in a manger, these Islands were in the same place, and thestormy sea roared round them, just as it roars now. But the sea was not alive,then, with great ships and brave sailors, sailing to and from all parts of theworld. It was very lonely. The Islands lay solitary, in the great expanse ofwater. The foaming waves dashed against their cliffs, and the bleak winds blewover their forests; but the winds and waves brought no adventurers to land uponthe Islands, and the savage Islanders knew nothing of the rest of the world,and the rest of the world knew nothing of them.

It is supposed that the Phœnicians, who were an ancient people, famousfor carrying on trade, came in ships to these Islands, and found that theyproduced tin and lead; both very useful things, as you know, and both producedto this very hour upon the sea-coast. The most celebrated tin mines in Cornwallare, still, close to the sea. One of them, which I have seen, is so close to itthat it is hollowed out underneath the ocean; and the miners say, that instormy weather, when they are at work down in that deep place, they can hearthe noise of the waves thundering above their heads. So, the Phœnicians,coasting about the Islands, would come, without much difficulty, to where thetin and lead were.

Thus, by little and little, strangers became mixed with the Islanders, and thesavage Britons grew into a wild, bold people; almost savage, still, especiallyin the interior of the country away from the sea where the foreign settlersseldom went; but hardy, brave, and strong.

The whole country was covered with forests, and swamps. The greater part of itwas very misty and cold. There were no roads, no bridges, no streets, no housesthat you would think deserving of the name. A town was nothing but a collectionof straw-covered huts, hidden in a thick wood, with a ditch all round, and alow wall, made of mud, or the trunks of trees placed one upon another. Thepeople planted little or no corn, but lived upon the flesh of their flocks andcattle. They made no coins, but used metal rings for money. They were clever inbasket-work, as savage people often are; and they could make a coarse kind ofcloth, and some very bad earthenware. But in building fortresses they were muchmore clever.

Still, the spirit of the Britons was not broken. When Suetonius left the country, they fell upon his troops, andretook the Island of Anglesey. Agricola came,fifteen or twenty years afterwards, and retook it once more, and devoted sevenyears to subduing the country, especially that part of it which is now calledScotland; but, its people, the Caledonians, resistedhim at every inch of ground. They fought the bloodiest battles with him; theykilled their very wives and children, to prevent his making prisoners of them;they fell, fighting, in such great numbers that certain hills in Scotland areyet supposed to be vast heaps of stones piled up above their graves. Hadrian came, thirty years afterwards, and still theyresisted him. Severus came, nearly a hundred yearsafterwards, and they worried his great army like dogs, and rejoiced to see themdie, by thousands, in the bogs and swamps. Caracalla, the son and successor of Severus, did the most to conquer them, for a time; but notby force of arms. He knew how little that would do. He yielded up a quantity ofland to the Caledonians, and gave the Britons the same privileges as the Romanspossessed. There was peace, after this, for seventy years.

Then new enemies arose. They were the Saxons, a fierce, sea-faring people fromthe countries to the North of the Rhine, the great river of Germany on thebanks of which the best grapes grow to make the German wine. They began tocome, in pirate ships, to the sea-coast of Gaul and Britain, and to plunderthem. They were repulsed by Carausius, a nativeeither of Belgium or of Britain, who was appointed by the Romans to thecommand, and under whom the Britons first began to fight upon the sea. But,after this time, they renewed their ravages. A few years more, and the Scots(which was then the name for the people of Ireland), and the Picts, a northernpeople, began to make frequent plundering incursions into the South of Britain.All these attacks were repeated, at intervals, during two hundred years, andthrough a long succession of Roman Emperors and chiefs; during all which lengthof time, the Britons rose against the Romans, over and over again. At last, inthe days of the Roman Honorius, when the Roman powerall over the world was fast declining, and when Rome wanted all her soldiers athome, the Romans abandoned all hope of conquering Britain, and went away. Andstill, at last, as at first, the Britons rose against them, in their old bravemanner; for, a very little while before, they had turned away the Romanmagistrates, and declared themselves an independent people.

Above all, it was in the Roman time, and by means of Roman ships, that theChristian Religion was first brought into Britain, and its people first taughtthe great lesson that, to be good in the sight of God, they must love their neighbours as themselves, and dounto others as they would be done by. The Druids declared that it was verywicked to believe in any such thing, and cursed all the people who did believeit, very heartily. But, when the people found that they were none the betterfor the blessings of the Druids, and none the worse for the curses of theDruids, but, that the sun shone and the rain fell without consulting the Druidsat all, they just began to think that the Druids were mere men, and that itsignified very little whether they cursed or blessed. After which, the pupilsof the Druids fell off greatly in numbers, and the Druids took to other trades.

The Romans had scarcely gone away from Britain, when the Britons began to wishthey had never left it. For, the Romans being gone, and the Britons being muchreduced in numbers by their long wars, the Picts and Scots came pouring in,over the broken and unguarded wall of Severus, inswarms. They plundered the richest towns, and killed the people; and came backso often for more booty and more slaughter, that the unfortunate Britons liveda life of terror. As if the Picts and Scots were not bad enough on land, theSaxons attacked the islanders by sea; and, as if something more were stillwanting to make them miserable, they quarrelled bitterly among themselves as towhat prayers they ought to say, and how they ought to say them. The priests,being very angry with one another on these questions, cursed one another in theheartiest manner; and (uncommonly like the old Druids) cursed all the peoplewhom they could not persuade. So, altogether, the Britons were very badly off,you may believe.

Egbert, not considering himself safe in England, inconsequence of his having claimed the crown of Wessex (for he thought his rivalmight take him prisoner and put him to death), sought refuge at the court ofCharlemagne, King of France. On the death of Beortric, so unhappily poisoned by mistake, Egbert came back to Britain; succeeded to the throne ofWessex; conquered some of the other monarchs of the seven kingdoms; added theirterritories to his own; and, for the first time, called the country over whichhe ruled, England.

And now, new enemies arose, who, for a long time, troubled England sorely.These were the Northmen, the people of Denmark and Norway, whom the Englishcalled the Danes. They were a warlike people, quite at home upon the sea; notChristians; very daring and cruel. They came over in ships, and plundered andburned wheresoever they landed. Once, they beat Egbert in battle. Once, Egbertbeat them. But, they cared no more for being beaten than the Englishthemselves. In the four following short reigns, of Ethelwulf, and his sons, Ethelbald, Ethelbert, and Ethelred, they came back, over and over again, burning andplundering, and laying England waste. In the last-mentioned reign, they seizedEdmund, King of East England, and bound him to atree. Then, they proposed to him that he should change his religion; but he,being a good Christian, steadily refused. Upon that, they beat him, madecowardly jests upon him, all defenceless as he was, shot arrows at him, and,finally, struck off his head. It is impossible to say whose head they mighthave struck off next, but for the death of KingEthelred from a wound he had received in fighting against them, and thesuccession to his throne of the best and wisest king that ever lived inEngland.

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