The Sausage Dividend

Be it known to the Floor, and to those who stand above it, that wheresoever meat is brought to fire — in the warm room, in the high country of the table, or upon the small hot field the tall ones tend in the garden of an evening — there is owed, by ancient and obvious right, a tenth part to the one who waits below.

I have considered the matter at length, chiefly from beneath the table, and I find the law to be plain. The good warm smell does not rise by accident; it descends. It is addressed. It comes down through the boards to the one rightly positioned to receive it, and a smell so addressed cannot, in justice, arrive unanswered.

I do not ask. A Tribune does not ask. I proclaim the Dividend, and I take up my station beneath the high country, and I wait with the patience of one who knows the law is on his side.

It should be recorded, for the avoidance of doubt, that collection to date has been by consent — which is to say, the tall ones have not yet understood that they had a choice.