| <Edinburgh Review  July 1846>
| <Language and Structure of the Statutes>
| <pb n="117">
| This is a large and important inquiry, and it would be 
| presumptuous to undertake the double duty of examining 
| the existing defects in the structure of our statutes, and 
| setting forth the details of the proper remedy, within the 
| space that we can at present allocate it.  In truth, we greatly 
| doubt, whether, were we able to accomplish such a 
| systematic exposition, we should be favoured with the 
| continued attention of our readers.  But, in a matter like this, 
| the exposure of flagrant defects, arising not from abortive 
| efforts to create a competent system, but springing up as 
| the natural fruits of utter neglect, is half the victory of 
| improvement gained.  Showing, as we shall be able to do, 
| that no uniform system has ever been adopted in this 
| branch of the Public Service ~~ but that it has been left to 
| the uncontrolled management of unknown and 
| irresponsible private persons, ~~ differing in profession, in 
| opinion, and in notions of the proper manner in which their 
| duties ought to be performed ~~ we shall prepare the reader 
| to find, that the work so executed is unscientific, 
| incongruous, and imperfect; and when he follows us 
| through our general remarks, he will probably be more 
| disposed than heretofore to attend to the vast practical 
| importance of the subject, and the necessity of 
| improvements.
| There are three different parties to whose intelligence the 
| Legislative Draftsman must address his labours ~~ the 
| Legislator, whose will he expresses; the People, who are to 
| derive from this expression the rule of their conduct; and 
| the Judge, who is to decide, when it becomes a question, 
| whether or not the law has been obeyed.  It is not the 
| intention of the legislator that constitutes the law, but the 
| words in which he has permitted that intention to be 
| expressed.  His views and designs cannot be
| <pb n="118">
| matter of enquiry; and if by any accident he has sanctioned 
| a law which the judge interprets in a manner directly the 
| reverse of that in which the legislator understood it, it must 
| be so put in execution; for the public have vested right in 
| the enforcement of the law as it stands, not as it was 
| intended.  The draftsman, therefore, must not be content 
| with announcing his propositions so as to please his own 
| taste; he must so construct them, that, according to what he 
| knows of the method in which judges construe language, 
| they shall receive from the Bench an interpretation 
| corresponding with the desire and intention of the 
| legislature.  To accomplish this, it is not sufficient that he 
| expresses his meaning in language sufficiently clear to 
| receive the right interpretation from an impartial critic.  He 
| lays his work before a public who are entitled each to 
| interpret it in his own favour; and to found upon any 
| reading that supports his own views, whether it be in 
| conformity with the intention with which the measure was 
| prepared or not.  To fortify his meaning against the 
| distortions of ingenious selfishness, is thus the real labour 
| of the draftsman ~~ the cause of all the elaboration and 
| complexity of his composition; the reason why he puts a 
| proviso here, and an exception there; incorporates complex 
| alternatives in the body of his sentences; and employs ten 
| different words for that which, on ordinary occasions, may 
| be expressed in one.  He taxes the highest capacity of 
| language as a vehicle of thought; for he desires to make his 
| composition not only intelligible, but incapable of being 
| misinterpreted.  A perpetual war with selfish 
| misinterpretation, is the cause of the elaboration and 
| obscurity that pervades all legal composition, whether in 
| Public Laws, or in private Conveyancing.  All who have 
| had any concern with the practice of the law, know that 
| there is no such perverse, unfair, prejudiced critic among 
| mankind, as he who is making up his mind to go to law.  If 
| words are against him, then the meaning of the writer was 
| certainly in his favour; and how monstrously unjust it is 
| that he should be the victim of bad grammar or unfortunate 
| collocation!  If the intention of the writer was decidedly 
| against him, but by the omission of the word "not," or 
| otherwise, words are in his favour ~~ will the 
| administrators of British justice dare to deprive him of what 
| has been in distinct terms made his?  Lawyers' quibbles are 
| a byword ~~ but what a picture of the selfishness, 
| dishonesty, and perverseness of human nature would be a 
| collection, if such could be made, of the quibbles of clients!  
| Words are at once the weapon and the fortification of 
| lawyers, and the unwieldy diffuseness, the confusion, the 
| clumsy elaborateness of their workmanship, have been 
| caused by the accumulation of
| <pb n="119">
| fortifications against the attacks of the designing and selfish.  
| A breach having been made in any particular place, the 
| legal draftsman has no alternative but to raise a new 
| rampart; he is afraid on his own responsibility to remove 
| the fragment of the broken wall, but he erects another; and 
| so from time to time the mass continues to accumulate, new 
| words and expressions, and new forms of clauses being 
| added to those which have been found imperfect.  A very 
| skilful lawyer may sometimes take it upon him to remodel 
| defective Forms, but the ordinary practitioner feels such a 
| responsibility too great for him; and he is content to be 
| elaborate and obscure, so he be free from the risk of having 
| recourse to a novelty.  Hence the illogical accumulation of 
| loads of words signifying nearly if not quite the same thing; 
| and the use of many integers, to express that which a 
| cumulative term would have represented more fully and 
| completely.  The draftsman engaged upon his particular job, 
| which he must execute in the safest manner for his 
| employer, improves on the precedent set before him, by 
| adding a word or two.  The next draftsman, employed for 
| the like purpose, after a lapse of time in which the efficacy 
| of these additions has been experienced, adds some others, 
| and so the mass accumulates.
| If the clauses of an act are declared by a subsequent act to 
| be in force, the draftsman is not content to refer to them 
| simply as clauses; but by a gradual accumulation it has 
| become the practice to say, <q> </q>.  One word might 
| suffice to refer to the levying of a tax, but it must be 
| expressed by such a collection of terms, as <q> </q>.  It is 
| thus that the logician's example of illogical arrangement ~~ 
| books divided into quartos, folios, octaves ~~ history, 
| novels, and dictionaries ~~ is exhibited in our legislation.  
| In the first instance the generic term "books" is used.  Then 
| some persons, anxious that there should be no doubt that 
| folios are especially included, adds that word; the next 
| draftsman, feeling that the enumeration is very far from 
| being exhaustive, adds another term; and thus what ought 
| to be accomplished by logical aggregation, is attempted to 
| be performed by individual enumeration.
| In a Despotism, where the declaration of the law and its 
| enforcement proceed from the same source, the citizen will 
| not look to the absolute terms of the law, but to the 
| intention and will of the lawgiver.  Brevity and simplicity 
| may be the characteristic of such laws, without a service 
| tax on the thought of the draftsman;
| <pb n="120">
| for <reg orig="every one,"> everyone, </reg> instead of 
| making a peculiar reading, and claiming a vested interest in 
| it, will be anxious to discover and abide by that intention of 
| the legislature, according to which he knows that his 
| conduct will be interpreted.  Whoever would understand 
| how much more simple it would be to legislate for a public, 
| anxious merely to understand the lawgiver's meaning, than 
| for a set of people each struggling to get his own view of it 
| adopted, may compare the bill of fares at a railway station 
| with a tariff act.  "Table of fares" announces to the willing 
| mind as much as several sections of a statute are required to 
| put beyond the cavils of an impugner.  <q> </q>, ~~ <q> 
| </q>, ~~ <q> </q>, ~~ need no elaborate interpretation of 
| their meaning.  <q> </q>, is easily understood; for it is the 
| passengers' interest to comprehend it, not to discover and 
| support any peculiar interpretation of it.  Even where there 
| are acts of Parliament fortified by the usual accumulation 
| of phrases, it is sometimes found expedient to provide ~~ 
| of that which has been made long and elaborate to obviate 
| sinister perversion of its meaning ~~ a short abridgement, 
| for the aid of those who honestly seek to know the intention 
| of the framer.  Thus, at a Turnpike gate, we see a board 
| announcing a series of rules, and a table of tolls.  It contains 
| all that it would have been necessary to give in place of 
| many pages of the turnpike act, had those who read it done 
| so only for information; but the very persons who read and 
| obey these abbreviated rules and tabular rates, would not 
| consent to be bound by a law so briefly set forth; but, 
| acquiring their knowledge in the abbreviated form, are only 
| prevented from disputing the meaning of that which is 
| simple and intelligible, because they know that it is 
| fortified by the elaborate and well weighed clauses of an 
| act of Parliament; which they have never seen, and which 
| they would be utterly unable to comprehend if it were 
| before them.
| The circumstance that the delicate and difficult duty of 
| drawing acts of Parliament was left to the unregulated 
| practice of individuals, early attracted the attention of the 
| Sages of the Law.  Sir Edward Coke laments that the 
| quantity of unscientific irregular draftsmanship, for which 
| both private documents and the public laws were in his day 
| conspicuous, gave birth to much litigation.
| <q>
| <pb n="121">
| </q>
| It may be inferred from this passage, that the great oracle of 
| the Common Law would have desired to see the statutes 
| draws and revised by the Judges, according to old practice; 
| but though we are anxious to see legal skill and uniformity 
| of system applied to the manufacture of our laws, we do not 
| think that those who are afterwards to have the duty of 
| interpreting them, should also be trusted with the task of 
| drawing them.  The Judge who gives decisions on the 
| meaning of a law framed by himself, may be the person to 
| know best what he intended to set forth; but he is for that 
| very reason ill qualified to decide whether the words he has 
| chosen have really given expression to what he meant, and 
| must so be understood by every person who considerately 
| weights them.  <hi rend="italic"> He </hi> will decide 
| according to his intention; but his <hi rend="italic"> 
| Successor </hi> will decide according to the meaning of his 
| words.  For the same reason, Solicitors know that the most 
| unsafe person of whom to take an opinion on the 
| application of a statute, is the Counsel who framed it.  It 
| would appear, indeed, that those who are most acute in 
| their judicial capacity, in weighing the value of subtle 
| criticisms on acts, are not the best constructors of 
| intelligible clauses.  Perhaps their own ingenuity in 
| discovering latent objections, makes them too diffident of 
| clear, broad, simple phraseology; and anxious to surround it 
| with explanatory and exceptional expressions suited to 
| meet their own doubts.  Lord Eldon, who boasted of being 
| able to drive a coach and six through other men's statutes, 
| was, it appears, himself a singularly confused draftsman.
| <q>
| <pb n="122">
| </q>
| In the passage cited, above from, Sir Edward Coke, his 
| allusion was probably not directed to the revisal of 
| Parliamentary Bills during their progress by persons of skill; 
| but to the ancient practice by which the judges framed the 
| statutes out of the proceedings of Parliament.  It is to the 
| curious constitutional movement, by which a change was 
| effected in this system, that we must attribute the 
| circumstance of the structure of the laws passed by 
| Parliament having been neglected; while the internal forms 
| of the legislative assemblies by which they are discussed 
| and sanctioned, have been carefully refined to the utmost 
| pitch of philosophical and practical precision.  It has long 
| been an essential principle in these forms, that nothing can 
| make its appearance as the determination, sense, or will of 
| Parliament, unless it has been put in writing before the 
| discussion has begun; so that it shall be in the power of 
| each member to know, not only the general purport, but the 
| very words of that which he is adopting or rejecting.  There 
| was thus nothing left for any recording officer, but the 
| statement of the vote as in the affirmative or negative; and 
| no reliance was placed on the honesty or discretion of any 
| official person as the organ of the proceedings of the 
| legislative body.  The practice of voting on amendments 
| <hi rend="italic"> seriatim, </hi> and finally adopting or 
| rejecting by a distinct vote, the proposition in reference to 
| which they have been proposed, is an essential part of this 
| beautiful system; and, simple as it may appear, is one of the 
| most exquisite designs of high logical art, for unraveling 
| the various threads of a complex series of contending 
| proposals, ~~ discussing each one separately from the 
| others, and giving each the benefit of a distinct debate on 
| its merits, if that be demanded by its opponents, and a 
| deliberate vote of the House.  This system, like many others 
| that unite simplicity with high art, was the growth of ages.  
| Hatsell tells us, that <q>
| <pb n="123">
| </q>
| We find from the same authority, that so early as 10th April 
| 1571, it was laid down by the Speaker, <q> </q>.  As an 
| instance, however, of the power which the Speaker, or a 
| Chairman of a Committee, might have at a much later 
| period in giving a direction to the proceedings, Clarendon 
| tells us that
| <q> </q>
| In the next page we are told that <q> </q>.
| In the regions of the earlier English Monarchs, any statute 
| of a session was framed by the judges out of the petitions of 
| Parliament, and the relative consents of the Monarchs.  
| This system naturally gave rise not only to much doubt 
| whether the true meaning of the legislature had been 
| incorporated in their recorded act; but from the frequent 
| remonstrances of parliament anterior to the reign of Henry 
| IV., it appears to have given room for intentional tampering 
| and vitiation, ~~ the Monarch sometimes altering the terms 
| of the petition before he granted it, and the judges 
| occasionally taking liberties with the materials from which 
| it was their duty to compose the laws.  Down to the time of 
| Henry V., <q> </q>, says Mr Ruffhead, <q>
| <pb n="124">
| </q>
| The history of that silent and important revolution by which 
| parliament provided for the integrity and genuineness of its 
| legislative proceedings, is thus told by Sir Matthew Hale: 
| ~~ <q> </q>.
| In Scotland, to the last, the legislation of a session of 
| Parliament appears to have been digested by the 
| Clerk-Register, from the materials furnished by the reports of the 
| Lords of the Articles, and the proceedings of the House in 
| relation to them; and the consequence is thus exhibited in 
| an incident related by Sir George Mackenzie: ~~ <q> </q>.  
| By this anecdote, we may measure the importance to the 
| integrity of our law, and to the constitutional power of 
| Parliament, of the change in the English practice described 
| by Sir Matthew Hale.
| When to this expedient was added the routine of the three 
| readings, and the method of discussion in committee, the
| <pb n="125">
| arrangements for making it clear that a measure had 
| received the full assent of the legislature, were brought to 
| perfection.  The principle of the measure, in the first place, 
| received their assent, and it was laid before them in the 
| words in which it would stand as their act.  As, however, 
| the whole of the details might not receive that approval 
| which was awarded to the general purport of the bill, an 
| opportunity was given for these being altered as the 
| majority of the House might suggest; but in such a form 
| that the discussion should not interfere with the decision, 
| on the final adoption or rejection of the measure.  Its 
| clauses having been to this end considered in committee, 
| the amended draft was again presented to the whole body, 
| sitting in its legislative capacity, ~~ on the simple question, 
| whether the whole should be adopted or the whole rejected.
| A complete severance was thus made between the forms of 
| parliamentary procedure, and the laws which they were the 
| means of embodying and promulgating.  The former 
| system, disencumbered of the structure of the laws, came 
| speedily to perfection.  Its progress was the object of the 
| care and ingenuity of the guardians of the constitution; who, 
| on the other hand, had no further concern with the mere 
| structure of the laws, than the simple process of stamping 
| them with the official mark of acceptance.  Thus dropped 
| out of the charge of the legislature, which so carefully and 
| scientifically transacted its own peculiar business, the 
| substance of the bills which were to be proposed as laws, 
| was left to be framed according to chance or choice, ~~ one 
| being prepared by a Member of parliament, another by a 
| Lawyer employed for the purpose, another by some 
| economical projector, and another by the member of some 
| official department.  No general rule was ever adopted or 
| set forth; and the only element of uniformity was a desire in 
| each draftsman not to perpetrate 
| <reg orig="any thing"> anything </reg> very different 
| from the work of his predecessors ~~ a custom which, if it 
| prevented some extravagances and diversities, also 
| perpetuated every defect that had ever obtained currency.  
| Thus, since the Union with Scotland, to very near the 
| present day, there has been no perceptible improvement of 
| the statutes; and the few amendments which have been 
| lately introduced, only show how wide a field there is for 
| beneficial alteration.  With the exception of these partial 
| experiments, all the reforms which a hundred and forty 
| years have developed, consist in some facilities for 
| reference; of which the Queen's printer has, we presume, a 
| considerable portion of the merit.  If we examine an official 
| printed volume of the statutes in Queen Anne's reign, we 
| find that the several chapters or acts of the statute of any 
| session are not numbered, and that none of them are 
| numerically partitioned
| <pb n="126">
| into sections.  In the eye of the law indeed, though in the 
| printed copy they are now provided with a numerical 
| division and subdivision, no abbreviated indicative signs 
| are acknowledged; and, as we shall hereafter see, the 
| references to and fro, throughout the statute-book, are made 
| in the clumsiest and vaguest manner.
| In 1793 a slight improvement was made in the statute law, 
| by appending to the title of each act the day of its having 
| received the royal assent; and thus making it bear 
| <hi rend="italic">  ex facie </hi> the date from which its 
| operation as a law commenced.  This is one of the very few 
| improvements made by the legislature itself.  It was 
| formerly said, that an act of Parliament, if it did not 
| specially explain the period of its commencement, should 
| be held to have been in force from the beginning of the 
| session.  It is almost needless to observe, that the practice 
| of such a <hi rend="italic">  fictio juris </hi> was 
| productive of great injustice; and accordingly the 
| <33 Geo. III. c. 13,> enacted, that the Clerk of Parliament should 
| indorse on each act the day of its receiving the royal assent 
| ~~ which, in the absence of any other distinct provision, 
| should be held as the day when its operation commenced.  
| Another amendment introduced by statutory authority may 
| be mentioned; ~~ the provision that all acts which mention 
| England shall include Wales and Berwick-on-Tweed.  But 
| this very amendment is indicative of a general want of 
| system; for the title of the act relating merely to house and 
| window duties contains no indication of its possessing such 
| a clause, and, at the present day, bills are drawn in 
| ignorance of this provision.
| Down to the year 1798, all the public statutes passed in a 
| session were mixed up together, and, in the printed editions 
| numbered continually in consecutive chapters, without any 
| separation of the public and general from the local and 
| personal acts.  These are now separated, and distinctly 
| enumerated; and the vast extent of legislation for purposes 
| of local administration and the organization of joint-stuck 
| companies, has made the annual increase of the second 
| department equal to about four times that of the first.
| The use of Schedules became a fixed practice about the 
| year 1794; though Mr Gael shows it to have been known 
| and exemplified so early as the 4th of Henry VII.  It has 
| been of great service, in throwing the forms of judicial 
| proceedings, and numerical tables, out of the framework of 
| the statute, and removing at least one element of prolixity 
| and confusion.  It is difficult to imagine how the complex 
| financial measures of
| <pb n="127">
| modern times could have been put into legislative shape, 
| without the aid of this ingenious and most simple 
| machinery.
| In scarcely any other respect has the form of the general 
| legislation of the country been improved since the 
| Revolution; while it has probably become more prolix and 
| obscure in the structure of its sentences; because from 
| generation to generation 
| <reg orig="no one"> no-one </reg> has dared to abridge, and 
| whatever redundancy has from time to time got admission 
| by the practice of draftsmen, has been religiously preserved 
| by their successors.  How clearly, briefly, and to the point, 
| the legislature sometimes spoke in the days of William III., 
| the following passage, taken from an act for regulating the 
| tobacco duties, may-be adduced as an instance ~~
| <q> </q>
| The Statute Law is partly addressed to Official persons, 
| whose special duty it is to make themselves acquainted 
| with the terms of the laws under which they act, and partly 
| to the Public at large.  If a department were chosen for the 
| display of complexity, it would naturally fall to the lot of 
| the former portion, ~~ for various reasons, the chief of 
| which is, that an acquaintance with the acts is part of the 
| business of these official persons.  But it
| <pb n="128">
| unfortunately happens that this is exactly the part of our 
| legislation in which the phraseology is most brief and 
| distinct, because the acts are drawn by people conversant 
| with the familiar nomenclature of their department; and 
| instead of employing a mass of words in description, they 
| use those abbreviated terms to which custom has given 
| distinct and well-known interpretations, in the conventional 
| language of their craft.  Thus, in the act for the 
| management of the Excise, the officer of excise, <q> </q> 
| a licensed trader is, is to receive his <q> </q> and copy it 
| into <q> </q>.  But it is in the statutes for the alteration of 
| the practice of the law, that this abbreviated phraseology is 
| seen to most advantage; because the lawyer who revises a 
| bill before it finds its way into either of the Houses, will 
| often object to the abbreviated technicalities of other 
| professions, and insist that they shall be described in words 
| at length; but has no hesitation in using the nomenclature of 
| his own, and indeed thinks that it is a peculiar and 
| appropriate ornament of an act of Parliament.  The act for 
| abolishing "fines and recoveries" has been greatly admired 
| by the profession; but without derogating from its merits, 
| there can be no doubt that much of its clearness and 
| adaptation to its intended purposes has arisen from the 
| draftsman having been able to express his intentions in 
| technical words; conveying a precise and full meaning to 
| his own mind, as well as to those who have to put in 
| practice and to interpret the act.
| As instances of the more diffuse species of draftsmanship 
| we might adduce the two Factor's acts.  They should have 
| been peculiarly clear and concise, because they regulate 
| those classes of mercantile transactions, which, in the 
| accepted phraseology of men of business, are so succinctly 
| and so emphatically described.  Yet they exhibit the most 
| cumbrous form of legal draftsmanship; because the person 
| who drew them being probably a lawyer, would trust 
| nothing to the descriptive power of mercantile 
| technicalities, but must have 
| <reg orig="every thing"> everything </reg> described at full 
| length.  Thus where a merchant would say ~~ <q> </q> ~~ 
| the corresponding part of the act occupies about an 
| ordinary octavo page, commencing with the usual  
| <hi rend="italic"> cerbiage </hi> ~~ <q> </q>, 
| <reg orig="&c. &c."> etcetera etcetera. </reg>
| <pb n="129">
| During the last session of Parliament, an act was passed for 
| enabling canal and navigation companies to vary their 
| charges in different parts of their line of navigation.  It was 
| provided by one section of this act, that when a line of 
| navigation is connected with other lines, and the charges on 
| the one have reference to those on the others, the managers 
| of one part are not to alter their charges according to the 
| powers given by the act, without the consent of the 
| managers of the whole system of connected lines.  It would 
| be easy, one would think, by the aid of systematic 
| arrangements, to make such a clause at once brief, clear, 
| and legally effective; but as it appears on the statute book, 
| we dare not incorporate it with the body of our remarks, 
| lest the reader, sticking hopelessly in its meshes, should 
| resolve to go no further; and we present it to the curious 
| and adventurous, in a note.  Such is a clause intended to be 
| discussed and acted on
| <pb n="130">
| at boards of trustees; or to be the object of negotiation at 
| general meetings of rival or inimical joint stock companies!  
| Among the acts to which technical legal expressions are 
| made use of, there are certainly many which are in daily 
| use among merchants, manufacturers, farmers, and other 
| 'laymen;' and have to be interpreted twenty times by 
| unprofessional persons, for once that they fall under the 
| practical criticism of a lawyer.  Yet so useful is it to have 
| terms with an assigned meaning attached to them, that we 
| are inclined to think such statutes are not so unintelligible 
| as those which attempt to create a description by a 
| multitude of words.  Thus, by the Bankrupt Statute, an act 
| of bankruptcy is performed by certain persons in trade ~~ 
| <q> </q>.  The apparently almost contradictory actions of 
| <q> </q>, and <q> </q>, are not very self explanatory; but 
| their meaning has been fixed in English law by a long 
| series of decisions, the whole law of which is incorporated 
| in the statute by these simple words.  Forms more 
| explanatory might have been used, but they might have 
| aimed at clearness without achieving it; and, destroying the 
| whole force of an elaborate array of hard-wrought 
| precedents, have left all the work to be repeated.  Legal 
| expressions, the meaning of which has been established by 
| a train of decisions, have in this respect a privilege with 
| which no other words in the language can cope.  They 
| labour, it is true, under this disadvantage, of not being so
| <pb n="131">
| accurately known to the public at large as to lawyers.  Yet 
| it may be questioned if any new phraseology would so well 
| explain the meaning which even merchants, from daily 
| practice and tradition, attach to the expression <p> "shall 
| keep his house." </p>
| Of all our statutes, those which are for the enforcement of 
| Taxes ought to be expressed with the greatest clearness and 
| simplicity.  Individuals cannot meet the Crown, as they can 
| do each other, in fair battle in the courts of law.  There is no 
| department of the law in which the subject is more jealous 
| of his rights ~~ more suspicious ~~ more prompt to be 
| excited by the smallest symptom of injustice ~~ and more 
| resolute, before yielding a willing obedience, to know how, 
| and by whose authority, he is charged.  There are two ways 
| of meeting this enquiring spirit.  An arbitrary, strong, and 
| unreasonable legislature, if unable altogether to conceal its 
| ordinances, will shroud them in such an impenetrable 
| mystery of complex arrangements, that the appalled 
| investigator will shrink back from the threshold of the 
| subject; and a power virtually arbitrary will be put into the 
| hands of official persons, whose spontaneous explanations 
| must satisfy the public:  A fair, generous, and manly 
| government will make the whole system as simple and 
| clear as possible, trusting its exception to the people's 
| acquaintance with the law, not to their ignorance of it.  Our 
| own fiscal regulations too often exhibit the former 
| character.  The Income-Tax act is a marked instance of this 
| class of legislation.  If we suppose a widow with an income 
| under 150 pounds a-year, endeavouring to find out whether, 
| and in what manner she is to get back the tax deducted 
| from the several dividends of joint-stock companies, in 
| which her means are invested, and picture her attempting to 
| solve the enigmas of this code, divided into one hundred 
| and ninety-three long sections ~~ any one of which requires 
| a thoroughly trained lawyer's intellect to comprehend it ~~ 
| we have a type of the complete dependence in which such 
| legislation places the people, on the conduct of officials.  It 
| follows the model of the old property and income-tax acts 
| of Pitt's day; which there can be little doubt were drawn 
| with a wicked skill, to be comprehensible only by a high 
| standard of accomplishment in fiscal statute lore.  Every 
| available form of repetition is adopted for no other purpose 
| that can be divined but the accumulation of verbiage; as an 
| analysis of any of these bundles of words would directly 
| show.  Thus, in section three, we have some previous acts 
| referred to, and <q> </q>.  Then, immediately afterwards, 
| in the same section,
| <pb n="132">
| there is an intention to repeat all these words, but the word 
| <p> "methods" </p> is dropped out, and the word <p> 
| "regulations" </p> substituted for it.  If there were a 
| sufficient number of words, it does not seem to have 
| mattered much what they were.
| But it is not alone in the substantive clauses of this act itself, 
| that its practice is fortified by a rampart of obscurity.  It not 
| only incorporates by references the powers of the assessed 
| tax acts, but, reciting the tides of the property-tax acts of 
| 1800 and 1810, it declares that they <q> </q>.  Thus a 
| whole mass of expired forgotten law, with all its indigenous 
| train of doubts and obscurities, is by a single sentence 
| amalgamated with the native difficulties of the income tax.  
| It will be strange indeed, if in all this <q> </q>, in one 
| sense of the term, the well-trained official cannot find 
| something to justify any act he may perform:  it will be 
| equally strange if any of the public at large should ever 
| make themselves learned enough to pronounce whether he 
| is acting according to law or not.
| The punctuation of our statutes goes for nothing in law; 
| <q> </q>, says Mr Gael, <q> </q>.  It is in such long and 
| complex sentences as those of which our statutes consist, 
| that punctuation is most needed, yet here it is not available.  
| The rule so neatly expressed by Sir William Grant, <q> 
| </q>, is probably a sound one.  To allow rights and 
| obligations, the definition of offences and the nature of 
| punishment, to depend on the locality of such minute, 
| fugitive, and destructible items as commas and semicolons, 
| might be dangerous; but the difficulty of applying to these 
| sentences the ordinary aids of literary composition, is 
| another reason for making them in their verbal structure 
| short, clear, and simple.  Our statutes are indeed utterly 
| unintelligible without a powerful machinery of punctuation.  
| In passing through the press, the acts are all abundantly 
| punctuated by some irresponsible persons, and very often 
| in such a manner as utterly to pervert their meaning.  We 
| could adduce many instances, but our readers will probably 
| be satisfied with one, as a type of the whole.  A clause of 
| the <3 and 4 Vic. c.> 1843, for the regulation of the 
| tobacco duties, is printed
| <pb n="133">
| thus.  <q> </q>, <reg orig="&c."> etcetera. </reg>  The 
| meaning would appear to be, that the officer of excise can 
| only enter the premises during the night, or between ten 
| o'clock in the evening and six o'clock in the morning.  The 
| real meaning of the act is, that at night the excise officer's 
| visit must not be made without the attendance of a 
| Peace-officer; and the perversion of meaning is produced by the 
| comma being placed after instead of before the word 
| <hi rend="italic"> only. </hi>
| The interpretation clause, the adoption of which is every 
| session becoming more frequent, shows how simple and 
| obvious an arrangement may be of use, in promoting 
| uniformity and distinction in the letter of the law.  To 
| appreciate its efficacy we need only compare such acts as 
| that for the regulation of persons employed in print works, 
| where the clause is carefully prepared to meet the 
| legitimate purpose of making the act intelligible, and those 
| instances, such as the Income-Tax act, where it either does 
| no occur at all, or is so meager as to be quite useless.
| Without aids from other arrangements, however, the simple 
| principle of the interpretation clause may be carried to far.  
| A hint of its legitimate province may perhaps be taken, 
| from observing the character of the superfluous matter 
| discharged, when statutes are abridged for the use of those 
| who desire to know their purport, in the sincere spirit of 
| willing obedience.  An abridgement hung up in a 
| conspicuous place, for the guidance of the public, would 
| mislead instead of instructing, if it omitted any of the 
| persons to whom it applies, or the acts which it prohibits.  
| The interpretation clause should never absorb 
| <reg orig="any thing"> anything </reg> that 
| is necessary to make the other clauses generally intelligible, 
| in their full import, to the persons bound by the Act, but 
| should stand in reserve to check them when they endeavour 
| to raise quibbles out of the simplicity and meagerness of 
| the enacting clauses.  Thus in a bill of the present Session 
| <q> </q>; but it may be questioned if another abbreviation, 
| by which the <q> </q>, may not sometimes cause 
| misunderstanding.  Mr Coode mentions a circumstance, 
| which shows that the illegitimate
| <pb n="134">
| use of the interpretation clause is not always the effect of 
| accident or indolence.  <q> </q>.
| No systematic method has ever been adopted, for 
| facilitating reference to the statutes and their clauses by 
| indices, or analyses.  The rubrics are the chance growth of 
| the practice of individuals, and own no regulating system.  
| In some instances, they have, of late years, been made in 
| the form of a careful analysis of the several sections; and 
| have been printed at the commencement of the bill, where 
| they perform a like service to the abbreviates of local bills.  
| There is a very creditable specimen of this species of work 
| in the bill of the present session, <q> </q>.  But in the 
| general case, whoever trusts to the rubrics, as indicating the 
| contents of the sections, may find himself leaning on a 
| broken reed; as they are drawn up according to some 
| conventional arrangement, with which the contents of the 
| section have no concern; and we could adduce instances 
| where the same rubric has been appended to totally distinct 
| clauses.  Some of these appendages are rather ludicrous.  
| Thus in the act appointing sanatory regulations to be 
| enforced during the prevalence of cholera, the margin states 
| ~~ <q> </q>.
| The established method of referring from one act to another, 
| is eminently cumbrous and unsatisfactory.  In some 
| instances the title of an act is repeated in another, and the 
| title of that other including it, is repeated in a third, and the 
| title of that third with its inclosures, in a fourth, like the 
| house that Jack built.  That any reader, who is partial to 
| such a mode of composition, may have an opportunity of 
| indulging his taste, we append a specimen in a note.
| <pb n="135">
| In a law book, the object of so much elaborate description 
| would be clearly and satisfactorily express, and the passage 
| intended to be referred to would be much more distinctly 
| individualized by the expression <23 Geo. III. c. II. ? 3;> 
| but that obtuse orb, <p> "the eye of the law," </p> is 
| acquainted with no such abbreviated method; ~~ it attaches 
| no meaning to these signs, and applies to them the adage, 
| <q> </q>.  Thus an indictment no further varying from 
| usual form, than by charging an offence as against an act 
| passed in the second "and third" of William IV. was held 
| bad.
| The accumulation of a number of matters of legislation in 
| one statute, is a cause of confusion which our later acts 
| have generally avoided; but the existence of these 
| multifariously directed statutes creates complexity and 
| uncertainty, when <reg orig="any thing"> anything </reg> 
| contained in them is referred to 
| in modern acts, and they ought to be suppressed by a 
| process of consolidation.  As an instance of the varied and 
| heterogenous nature of some of these acts, and as a 
| curiosity in itself, we present our readers with the following 
| title of the <23d Geo. II. c. 26.>
| <q>
| <pb n="136">
| </q>
| The practice of repealing a whole process of acts relating to 
| a particular matter, and substituting a consolidated statute 
| in their place, is of incalculable advantage; and has already 
| been carried so far with such beneficial effect as to infer a 
| reproach to our government for not having proceeded 
| further in this good direction.  In some instances this 
| practice has been adopted wherever any measure 
| embodying a considerable alteration of a single previous 
| act has been introduced.  Thus, in a bid of the present 
| session, to improve the arrangements for receiving deposits 
| for local acts, instead of the previous act being amended, 
| the system is re-constructed, with the preamble, <q> </q>.  
| Even in such a modified case, relieving the person who 
| uses the act of the necessity of comparing two sets of 
| clauses with each other, saves him much trouble and many 
| perplexities, and the consolidation will generally be as easy 
| to the draftsman as mere amendment.  Its only defect is in 
| adding so much useless paper to the statute book ~~ an 
| unavoidable evil.  If the old structure must be left in 
| existence, it is better that it should remain merely to 
| cumber the ground, and that a substantial new mansion 
| should be built near it, than that it should be converted to 
| modern use by elaborate and unsymmetrical additions.  It is, 
| however, in those departments of the statute law where 
| there are long lists of acts all connected together, each 
| explaining, amending, or altering its predecessors, that the 
| consolidation system is most conspicuously useful.  In this 
| shape it has made considerable progress in some 
| departments of the Revenue law; and in the customs acts 
| we possess a really noble specimen of a revenue code, 
| prepared, we believe, by the untiring labour and skill of the 
| late Mr Deacon Hume.  In the year 1825, a series of statutes 
| was passed for accomplishing this end, consisting of eleven 
| acts, including the regulations for the warehousing of goods, 
| the prevention of smuggling, the registration and economy 
| of British vessels <reg orig="&c."> etcetera </reg>  One of 
| these acts was devoted to the 
| repeal of all previous laws relating to the matters embraced 
| by the several new acts; and we have at once a pregnant 
| illustration of
| <pb n="137">
| the extent and the complexity of the custom house law 
| anterior to 1825, in the circumstance, that 410 acts are 
| enumerated at either wholly or partially repealed!  Had this 
| repealing enactment been prepared in the ordinary form, by 
| which a sentence commencing <q> </q>, 
| <reg orig="&c.,"> etcetera, </reg> enumerates the several acts, 
| and closes with the words <q> </q>, we would have had 
| one sentence about as long as an ordinary octavo volume.  
| We have seen many repealing sentences, which, if printed 
| in the ordinary type of a novel, would fill half a volume.  
| Notwithstanding the vigilance with which these acts were 
| collected together from all parts of the statute-book, some 
| misgivings seem to have been entertained that a few, 
| lurking in obscure corners, might have escaped observation; 
| and by a subsequent statute, <q> </q>, there is a general 
| repealing clause.
| Meanwhile additions were made from time to time to this 
| code, and twelve statutes had been added explaining, 
| altering, or repealing certain portions of it, in 1813, when 
| the whole series was again repeated, and a new set of 
| consolidation acts passed.  In twelve years fourteen other 
| statutes, some of them of considerable length, embracing 
| important alterations in this department of the revenue laws, 
| had to be construed along with the consolidated acts of 
| 1833; and during the last session the whole series was again 
| swept off the list of existing laws, and their substance was 
| embodied in twelve new consolidation acts.
| One of the main defects of our statute law is the difficulty, 
| on many occasions, of determining the territorial extent of 
| the applications of an act ~~ whether it extends to the 
| whole United Kingdom, or is only applicable to a part, such 
| as Great Britain, or England.  It sometimes happens, that an 
| act intended only to apply to England, contains no clause 
| specifically limiting its operation to that part of the Empire; 
| while, in other cases, statutes intended to apply to all parts 
| of the United Kingdom, have no machinery adapted to their 
| enforcement in Scotland or
| <pb n="138">
| Ireland.  It is difficult to get the pure bred English lawyer to 
| remember, that there is any part of the world where his own 
| technical phraseology is not predominant; and that there are 
| parts of the Empire over which her Majesty's Courts of 
| Record at Westminster, and the system they administer, 
| hold no authority.  The words "advocation," "reclaiming 
| note," "suspension," and "condescendence," are as 
| applicable to practice in England as "certiorari,"  "writ of 
| error," and "imparlance" to that of Scotland; yet in acts of 
| parliament applying to the whole realm, and which must be 
| enforced in Scotland, these are the terms out of which the 
| administrators of the law must divine a method of putting it 
| in force.  The act for the regulation of Benefit Building 
| Societies, contains clauses applicable solely to English 
| conveyancing; such as "mortgage," "equity of redemption," 
| <reg orig="&c.,"> etcetera, </reg> which have no more 
| meaning in Scotland than "wadset" or "adjudication in 
| implement" would have in England.  When such 
| inapplicable phraseology is used in relation to the 
| proceedings of courts, no practice can take place upon the 
| act, without its at once being perceived whether the course 
| of law in Scotland consider themselves bound or entitled to 
| put it in execution; but when the phraseology applies to 
| property or transaction, latent defects may have 
| accumulated to a great extent before they are discovered.  
| We do not know if there is any authority for holding, that 
| this act can be put in force in Scotland; but perhaps at a 
| distant day, when some respective body of artisans, formed 
| into a Benefit Society, have expended their whole social 
| funds, and a considerable sum besides in the Court of 
| Session and House of Lords, it may be known whether the 
| act is capable of being worked in Scotland or not.
| The "apportionment act" was passed in 1834, and was 
| called <q> </q>.  This act of the 11th George II, was 
| specially limited to England, excluding Scotland and 
| Ireland.  Its object was, in the case of the granter of a 
| temporary right in land terminable by his death, dying 
| between terms, to enable his representatives to recover rent 
| from the tenant proportioned to the period of the broken 
| term.  The act of 1834 was passed avowedly to remove 
| some doubts regarding the extent of this provision.  So far 
| as it did so, it could of course only extend to the portion of 
| the Empire in which the doubtful provisions applied, viz. 
| England.  But a further clause appeared
| <pb n="139">
| in the act, not embraced in its title, by which in the case of 
| annuitants, or other persons entitled to receive sums of 
| money at fixed periods, dying between the periods of 
| payment, their executors became entitled to receive a 
| proportion corresponding to the period between the death 
| and the preceding term of payment.  As if the person who 
| drew the act had been under the influence of the spirit of 
| wanton mischief, this clause was declared to extend to <q> 
| </q>, <reg orig="&c."> etcetera. </reg>  Eight years after 
| this act had passed, some discursive reader of statutes 
| stumbled on this clause; and since it has been brought to 
| light, it appears to have created a wider change in the law 
| Scotland than many statutes which have been dispersed 
| among the legal bodies, discussed at county meetings, or 
| town-councils, and only passed after they have struggled 
| through several sessions.  The Judge before whom the 
| question under the act was raised, according to a form 
| peculiar to the practice of Scotland, Reported the case for 
| the direction of the whole Court; and the shape in which he 
| made his report shows how great a revolution the clause, 
| were it law, created: ~~ <q> </q>.  The Court, by a narrow 
| majority, found that they could not overlook the direct 
| comprehensive terms of the act, and that it must be held 
| applicable to Scotland.  The case is now under appeal.  
| Lord Jeffrey, who concurred in the view of the majority, 
| made the following remarks, which are eminently 
| applicable to the carelessness with which such matters are 
| managed.  <q>
| <pb n="140">
| </q>
| Whatever tends to uniformity between the statute law of 
| England and that of Scotland, is generally a great gain to 
| the latter country; but it is not by overlooking the existence 
| of the northern part of the island in legislation for the 
| southern, that uniformity is attained.  Like all good things, 
| it will more naturally arise as the fruit of care, labour, and 
| skill, than of disorder and neglect.  In a recent Number of 
| this Journal, we censured the doctrine which has been 
| reduced to practice by the Scottish Criminal Courts, that 
| they can administer a law of their own making, in those 
| cases for which the legislature has not provided.  This 
| objectionable feature, which had long distinguished the 
| Scottish practice, both in the civil and criminal courts, is 
| fostered, if it is not in a great measure caused, by the 
| slovenly uncertainty of the statute law.  If it become a nice 
| point of criticism, whether a statute applies to Scotland or 
| not, the Judges must act upon general impressions and 
| critical deductions; they have no other guide.  It would be 
| impossible to find, in the decisions of the Scottish Courts, 
| any absolute criterion of the applicability of an act to their 
| part of the Empire.  In some cases, the use of the 
| phraseology of the English law, and the circumstance that 
| the legislative draftsman seems not to have dreamed of the 
| existence of <q> </q>, are conclusive against the extension 
| of the act; but in other instances of similar phraseology, as 
| in England, the mischief that would accrue from its not 
| taking effect, and the general understanding of the public 
| that it was a measure national to all Britain, have been 
| reasons for translating the technicalities of the English into 
| the parallel terms of the Scottish law, and acting as if these 
| had been embodied in the statute.
| In 1835, an act was passed for punishing cruelty to animals.  
| Its local application is not limited, but two years later an act 
| was passed to remove any doubts that it applied to Ireland.  
| This created doubts of its application to Scotland, and some 
| magistrates enforce it, while others do not.  The extensive 
| amellorations of the Criminal Code commencing in 1827, 
| apply solely to England.  Several of the severe acts, 
| however, which
| <pb n="141">
| they amend, embrace Scotland, and thus remain unrepealed 
| in their application to that part of the Island.  In these cases, 
| the too ample powers for the modification of punishments, 
| divided between the public prosecutor and the court, serve 
| to hide from the public the severity of the written law; and 
| at the same time to palliate and excuse a dangerous license 
| of authority.  Within these few past years, several statutes 
| for the mitigation of the Criminal Code have been passed, 
| without any reference to Scotland; and during the present 
| session, a bill was brought in by the Lords, <q> </q>, of 
| which the phraseology is English, but the application 
| unlimited; and which will, if it pass, and ever be noticed in 
| Scotland, be an addition to those passes of the statute law 
| which the Judges may adopt or reject at their pleasure.
| But even where Scotland has been particularly kept in view, 
| the legislature has not, in some instances, been more 
| successful in the applicability of its machinery.  The act 52 
| George III. <c. 93,> imposes certain penalties on persons 
| keeping greyhounds for the purpose of killing game, 
| without having obtained a certificate in terms of the act.  
| Prosecutions for recovery of penalties were appointed to 
| proceed in the first instance before a Justice of Pease or two 
| Commissioners, but a provision was made for an appeal 
| from their decision in the following terms: ~~ <q> </q>.
| Now, independently of the circumstance that a "liberty" is a 
| civil division unknown in Scotland, the definition of the 
| court of appeal was previously as clear as if, with reference 
| to England, it had been to the Chief-Justice, or any other 
| officer of the court of Queen's Bench of the county, riding, 
| or division.  A person convicted before two justices in 
| Lanarkshire, brought an appeal before the circuit court of 
| Justiciary, sitting in Glasgow.  The question was discussed 
| before the High Court in Edinburgh, and it was found, 
| though there was a considerable difference of opinion, that 
| the terms of the act did not give that court any jurisdiction 
| in the matter.  One of the Judges expressed himself as 
| follows: ~~
| <pb n="142">
| <q> </q>
| Such was the manner in which it was necessary for the 
| Judges to speak of the proceedings of the legislature.
| It is clear that whatever other reforms in the routine of 
| legislation may be necessary or expedient, there should be a 
| rule against any measure being passed, which has not been 
| perused by some person acquainted with the law and 
| institutions of Scotland.  That part of the Empire has lost 
| the advantage of many valuable reforms by the simple 
| circumstance of having been overlooked by the promoters 
| of the measures.  Even when it is part of the plan that a bill 
| shall apply exclusively to England, it is often expedient that 
| some pains should be taken to unravel its machinery from 
| any such entanglement with Scottish practice as may render 
| the limitation abortive or ambiguous.  Where rights and 
| obligations are established with an application solely to 
| England, it is necessary to provide that the law of Scotland 
| shall not afford the means of defeating them, and to do so 
| in such a manner as not to extend the operation of the act to 
| Scotland.  In 1844 an act was passed for the winding up of 
| insolvent joint-stock companies.  Though there is no 
| territorial limitations ~~ that the act is intended for practice 
| solely in England, is clear from its setting in motion the 
| machinery of the English bankruptcy court alone.  But it 
| was necessary to introduce a provision for enforcing the 
| legitimate judicial proceedings of the English Court on 
| persons residing in Scotland.  These clauses, and the 
| reference of the operation of the act to companies 
| embodied under the patent companies' act, which 
| undoubtedly extends to Scotland,
| <pb n="143">
| have created great dubiety as to the extent of the operation 
| of this act.  Such a measure is much needed in Scotland, 
| where, in the framing of the contracts of copartnership, as 
| well as the local acts made for the distribution of profits 
| and benefits; and losses are not contemplated.  The English 
| bankruptcy system claims a wider operation then the law of 
| Scotland is disposed to sanction, when the two come into 
| collision in the Scottish Courts; and thus it is to be feared 
| that, unless the legislators interpose, the act in question will 
| have the effect of inducing people to commence 
| proceedings in England, which may afterwards be 
| counteracted in Scotland.
| In the later statutes relative to the bankruptcy court, and in 
| the insolvent debtors' acts, clauses were introduced for 
| venting in the assignees real property records.  The clauses 
| were only too effective; for it was found, to the horror and 
| alarm of the officials, that the English assigned leaped at 
| once, and without any formalities, into a position which 
| could not, according to the law and practice in Scotland, be 
| attained, without previous preliminaries, ~~ necessary, it 
| was said, for the proper order and utility of the records.  On 
| the other hand, it was found that the old Scottish 
| bankruptcy act had not given the trustee or assignee 
| authority to sue for debts in England, because they were 
| <?> in action, which could not be carried by assignment.  
| <q> </q>, said Lord Ellenborough, <q> </q>.  That is to 
| say, that he drew the clause in the knowledge of a rule of 
| law which would render it useless.
| Whatever arrangements may be made for the mere structure 
| of our statue law, we must never forget, that they can only 
| be subsidiary to the capacity of adapting the substance of 
| the legislation to the objects it is intended to accomplish.  
| To suppose that good legislation will be favariably the 
| result of a good machinery for systematically arranging the 
| words in which it is expressed, would be as fallacious as to 
| suppose, that the syllogistic form will always embody 
| sound reasoning.  Notwithstanding the theory of our 
| representative system, and the aggregate discussion and 
| sanction that characterise British legislation, there is no 
| doubt that our great social and administrative reforms are 
| generally the fruits of individual minds; who thus exercise 
| over their fellow creatures
| <pb n="144">
| the beneficent despotism of talent, industry, and integrity.  
| When legislation proceeds on that species of induction 
| from facts, both wide and minute, which characterized the 
| English poor-law measure, he who has painfully collected 
| from individual abuses the general character of past defects, 
| and thence has devised the comprehensive remedy, is 
| generally the person who best knows how that remedy 
| should be embodied in legislation.  The immense mass of 
| unused knowledge which fills our parliamentary 'Blue 
| Books,' and of which each portion, after it has had its hour 
| of newspaper notice, sinks into oblivion, must be in a great 
| measure attributed to the circumstance, that the able and 
| industrious men who are employed in these inquiries, stop 
| with inquiry and exposition; and are not entrusted with the 
| additional duty of embodying the remedies in measures 
| fully prepared and digested for the adoption of Parliament.  
| In the Report of the English Poor-Law Inquiry Commission, 
| there is a distinct remedial measure attached to each 
| exposition of the defects of the old system; and these 
| suggestions are printed in capitals, so that the reader can 
| either examine each one in connexion with the particular 
| inquiry to which it is attached, or at a general glance survey 
| the whole, as the outline of a Poor-Law Code.  We believe 
| it was intended, that the gentleman whose views most 
| influenced the scope of the inquiry, and the character of the 
| remedies, should have embodied in the Report the full 
| details of a remedial measure; and that many of the defects 
| which were afterwards discovered, were owing to the 
| drawing of the act having, from the rapidity with which it 
| was thought necessary to proceed, been placed in the hands 
| of professional persons, to whom the whole was new; and 
| who could not be so imbued with the spirit that presided in 
| the Report as fully to embody its principles.  Such a method 
| of preparing laws need not be variance with uniformity in 
| their structure.  A revisal by any officer whose duty it is to 
| see that the bill conforms in its structure to certain rules, 
| may proceed in complete harmony with the labours of the 
| person who suggests and embodies the measure.  In France, 
| there is a pretty complete and systematic arrangement for 
| the preparation and revisal of each <f> </f> by responsible 
| official persons; and each measure <?> complete from its 
| proper office before it comes on for consideration by the 
| legislature.
| It is true that complete official superintendence of the 
| details of any measure is somewhat incompatible with its 
| free treatment by the legislature.  However skillfully or 
| systematically it be framed, it is necessary that Parliament 
| should be at perfect freedom to alter its details in 
| Committee.  A little management
| <pb n="145">
| may be necessary to reconcile the two advantages; but 
| order and system, ~~ the circumstance that each department 
| has its proper place where it may be found, ~~ will render 
| the whole scope of a measure more manageable in the 
| hands of those who are dealing with it; will enable them to 
| see more readily where alterations are needed; and will 
| facilitate the adaptation of amendments to the general scope 
| of the measure.  Mr Coode justly says ~~
| <q> </q>. ~~
| We have avoided the subject of Local Legislation, as apt to 
| lead to the consideration of defects peculiar to itself, with 
| which it would be impossible to deal within our limited 
| space; but we feel bound to notice a feature in the general 
| legislation of the country during the last session, calculated 
| to abbreviate and simplify future local bills.  Three acts 
| were passed intended to contain general formulas for the 
| clauses most usually to be found in local measures.  There 
| are certain provisions which every local act, for the 
| accomplishment of any one particular class of objects ~~ 
| such as railways or harbours ~~ contains, or ought to 
| contain.  By embodying the corresponding clauses in a 
| series of Public acts, instead of separately re-enacting them 
| in each new local statute, it was believed that two objects 
| might be accomplished in regard to future local legislation, 
| ~~ brevity and uniformity.  These acts are appointed to be 
| cited by abbreviated titles, which announce pretty distinctly 
| their objects: ~~ <q> </q>.  To prevent confusion, a 
| separate series was passed applicable to Scotland.  The 
| design of these measures is worthy
| <pb n="146">
| of unmixed commendation.  How far they may accomplish 
| their purpose, can only be judged of, after a course of 
| experience of their operation.
| We have already intimated, that it did not form any part of 
| the plan of this article, to enter on the discussion of any 
| definite and systematic measures for the reform of those 
| evils, a part only of which we have pointed out.  In Mr 
| Symonds' Report, a scheme of bold and ingenious 
| arrangements is set forth, which our limits will not allow us 
| to notice, further than to express our belief, that it aims at a 
| change much too radical and extensive to be safe adopted, 
| until it has stood the test of further and more thorough 
| examination and criticism.  This gentleman had the merit of 
| having attracted attention to this subject in 1835, in a work 
| entitled <hi rend="italic"> The Mechanics of Lore Making 
| </hi>; and he even then presented his opinions in a 
| complete and systematic form.  Mr Coode, whose little 
| work is more cautious in its clear and exact suggestions, 
| considers that nearly all that is desired may be 
| accomplished, by ridding the present forms of their 
| superfluous and obscure phraseology; and confiding the 
| mechanical part of legislation to persons who have studied, 
| and who comprehend the nature of their task.  In this 
| opinion he is supported by the scope of Mr Gael's more 
| elaborate work, which furnishes a chart of rocks and 
| quicksands to be avoided by the draftsman who desires to 
| put his meaning into language which cannot be either 
| mistaken or misapplied.
|