Sampled in this chapter are some signs seen in shopping establishements. They include types of businesses, parts of a store, routine steps for making a purchase, (non-cash) payment methods, discount, and receipts.

Having addressed exploitation and violence towards elders, the book moves to consider how some enslavers chose the less physical – but no less cruel – route of abandoning, selling, or simply neglecting enslaved people once they had become “old and broken.” Chapter 2 covers manumission laws and the efforts of enslavers to work around these; the significance of age to the dynamics of, and experiences in, the internal slave trade; and the tragic consequences of neglect for elders deemed unproductive by those whom enslaved them. Proslavery claims of “retirement” or of care from cradle-to-grave were no match for the economic self-interest of enslavers, small and large, and the driving force of slavery revolved around taking the “best years and the best strength” from enslaved people. This chapter shows how enslaved people understood this exploitative dynamic, and the horrifying consequences of it for Black elders, all too well

This chapter examines the contract of sale which is governed by Articles 184–236 of the Swiss Code of Obligations. This chapter commences with the sources of this contract, its definition and characteristic elements, as well as the various types of this contract. This chapter then moves on to discuss the formation of the contract of sale before discussing in detail the obligations of the seller, namely the obligation to deliver the object and to transfer ownership to the buyer, and the buyer’s obligation to pay the price. This chapter further explores the non-performance of the buyer’s and seller’s obligations as well as the passing of risk with particular emphasis on the seller’s warranty of title and warranty of conformity. This chapter finally focuses on the sale of real property as well as how international sales contracts are dealt with under Swiss law.

Sale was central to the trade in manufactured goods but hire and hire purchase were also used for the marketing of some goods such as railway wagons, motor vehicles and lorries. With sale the common-law rules, later codified in the Sale of Goods Act 1893, might be altered in the written contract if they failed to accord with commercial need. In practice the default rules and the terms of any written contract worked in the context of the relationship between the manufacturer and purchaser whether, for instance, it was long term and whether trust remained or had evaporated. These written contracts were vital if the contract contained detailed specifications as to how an item was to be made. What happened when things went wrong might be more informal, without resort to lawyers or law. Hire and hire purchase meant customers obtained manufactured goods on credit; on the other, suppliers had some protection through a form of quasi-security if customers defaulted in their payments, or the goods were wrongly disposed of. Manufactured goods could be distributed through commercial intermediaries who were allocated geographical areas to market them and bound to do that at specific prices and in specific ways.

That legal ideas emerge and expand through networks and connections is ably demonstrated in the life of J. P. Benjamin (1811-1884). Born to parents who migrated throughout the Atlantic world, Benjamin had a varied career as a lawyer, legislator, and plantation owner in Louisiana before becoming a United States senator, Supreme Court attorney, and Confederate States cabinet member. As a self-described ‘political exile’, he then became the acknowledged leader of the English Bar. This extraordinary career was possible because Benjamin’s personality facilitated the creation and development of networks which facilitated the spread of his legal knowledge. As a Louisianan and an American, he brought to the United Kingdom and its Empire a very different form of legal knowledge than then existed at the Bar. The networks of knowledge, people, and institutions he made had a lasting impact upon the development of law in the United Kingdom and the British Empire.