"If the court shall order the sum at which any person is rated, to be raised."— 41 Geo. III., c. 23, s. 17..

"If any one duly rated to a church rate, the validity of which has not been questioned."

Any justice of the peace of the county, &c., where the church is situate."— 53 Geo. III, c. 127, s. 7.

"Any justice, &c., other than such justice as is patron of the church."-1 Geo. I., stat. 2, c. 6, s. 2.

A penal example.

"If it shall appear that the husband or father, &c., is an idle or disorderly person, able to work, but by his neglect of work, or for want of seeking employment, or by spending the money he earns in ale-houses or places of bad repute, does not maintain his wife or children, and suffers them to be reduced to want, it shall be lawful," &c.-22 Geo. III., c. 83, s. 35.

THE LANGUAGE appropriate in other respects to the case-that it should be hypothetical; to the condition-that it should be conditional; to the legal subject-that it should be simply nominative; to the copula, and to the legal action-that it should be facultative or imperative, has been adverted to before, in treating severally of these elements of a legislative sentence.

IN CONFORMING to these rules, it is to be observed that, after all, nothing is more required than that, instead of an accidental and incongruous style, the common popular structure of plain English should be resorted to.

There is apparently a notion amongst amateurs, that legislative language must be intricate and barbarous. Certain antic phrases are apparently thought by them to be essential to law-writing. A readiness in the use of "nevertheless," "provided always," "it shall and may be lawful, and he is hereby authorized, empowered, and required to," "anything in any act or acts to the contrary notwithstanding," &c., &c., seem to be admitted to constitute the qualification for drawing acts of parliament. The merit appears to mount higher in proportion as the author can succeed in including a greater number of limitations, qualifications, conditions and provisoes, between the nominative case and its verb, or any other pair of dependent words. It is, however, a clear mistake, to think that this absurd style, prevalent as it is, and much as we sacrifice to adhere to it, has the sanction of authority. The bills prepared by judges and wellinformed lawyers, or by men really practised in the forms of legal expression, have at all times been, as a rule, remarkable for simplicity and directness, and, allowing occasionally something to the technical nature of the subjects, for the popularity of their style and construction.

If it could be made to be generally recognised, that the essentials of every law are simple, and that their direct expression is the perfection of law-writing, the greatest defects of our statute law would cease.

It may

IT WILL, PERHAPS, SEEM to be a great waste of care, to make all these distinctions, as to the elements, the method of distribution, and the expression of a single legislative sentence. seem as if the whole structure of a complicate statute should be more readily explained, than the structure of a single sentence seems to be explained in the foregoing observations.

But it is of these simple elements that the whole law consists. If these be not well discrimi nated and well marshalled in each sentence, there is no hope for their being well combined in the whole law. On the other hand, if each single sentence be well constructed, though the large divisions of the whole statute be ill combined, the parts will still be clear-the law will still be certain when it is found, although by bad arrangement made less capable of being readily discovered; and the worst effect that could result would be, that the law would then consist of an ill-connected mass of well-expressed provisions, instead of being, as the statute law now is, for the most part, an ill-connected mass of ill-expressed provisions.

It is scarcely possible, that the single sentence can be systematically framed, on good principles, without an equal improvement taking place in general arrangement, at the first stage, of each individual statute; and at the next stage, of the more general heads of the law, and thus the objects referred to at page 20 (1494), of facilitating special legislation, and at the same time securing consistency in principles, and generality in expression, is made more attainable; for how can the case be always placed foremost, without its being apparent, how often, for the same case, different provisions are made-how often verbal, formal and accidental variations are made in the description of cases, in essentials the same; and how can any one resist the immediate conclusion, that the expression of all such cases should be made identical, and the various enactments for the same case combined together? Or, where conditions are found in a constant place and order, can they be as capriciously introduced, varied or abandoned, as now? and where analogous conditions are imposed in various cases, will not the principle of these conditions force itself on attention, and compel their extension to all other cases coming within the same principle? Where the subject is always kept conspicuous, is it probable, that the same persons can be

constantly brought into view, without suggesting the identity of their conditions and relations, and the propriety, therefore, of the generalization of the law applicable to them, or without compelling the extension to all such persons of the rights only withheld from some by accident, and of the obligations only escaped by others by like accident? Again, can the legal action be placed uniformly and conspicuously before the legislature or the public, without attention being called to every new experiment in legislation, to every anomaly in legal action, or without causing more consistency to be observed in the creation and expression of rights, obligations, powers, sanctions and vindications; or without producing, by the concentration of attention upon the functional part of legislation, a better appreciation of the legislator's peculiar business. and a more systematic performance of it?

If these questions, or any of them, are to be answered in the affirmative, the foregoing discussion of the elements and form of a legislative sentence, long as it is, will be in some measure justified.

Inner Temple July 25th 1842.

GEORGE COODE.

A LIST

OF SOME

WORDS AND PHRASES

FREQUENT IN ACTS OF ASSEMBLY AND LEGAL PROCEEDINGS, AND REFERENCES TO AUTHO-
RITIES WHERE THEIR MEANING HAS BEEN EXPLAINED OR DISCUSSED; THE SPACE AN
EXPLANATION WOULD OCCUPY HERE, PREVENTING ANYTHING MORE THAN A REFERENCE.

Account stated. 8 Pick. 193.

5 Rep. 100.

8 How- At least. 8 W &. S. 470.
At such time and manner. 19 Ves. 387.
At the trial of the cause. 9 E. C. L. 202, 186.
Balance due on general account. 3 Pet. 354.
Bank-notes. 5 Mason 549. 6 Wend. 346, 430

Account and Risk. 4 East 211. Holt's Law of Bearing interest.
Shipping 373.

Accustomed rent. Hardr. 325.

Act of God. 1 Cranch 345. 22 E. C. L. 36.

Addams' Ecc. 490. 12 Johns. 44.

Action depending. 4 Watts 154.
Actual cost. 2 Mason 48, 393.
Adjoining. 1 Turner 21.

Advantage, priority or preference. 4 W. C. C. 447.
Affecting. 9 Wheat. 855.

After the cause af action shall have arisen. 29 E. C.

L. 342.

1 Starkie 452. 2 E. C. L. 466.
31 E. C. L. 80.

Become insolvent.
Before the next term.

1 Binn. 76. 4 Yeates 511, 512.
of the term, after the action has
4 Dall. 413.

2 Before the first day
been commenced.
Belonging. Chitty's General Practice 475, n. ง
Bing. 76.

Best of his knowledge and belief, in an affidavit or
answer. 1 Paige 404. 3 Ib. 107, 212. 1 Johns.
Ch. 107. 5 Ib. 247.
Between. 6 Watts 56.

Beyond seas. 3 Wheat. 553. 9 S. & R. 291.

Agreement. Fell on Guar. 262. 3 Brod. & Bing. Blood. 2 Peters 87, 94.

14. 7 E. C. L. 331.

Agrees to let.

9 A. & E. 644.

Any court of record. 6 Rep. 19.

Any, any goods. 3 Camp. 221.

Any creditor. 5 B. & A. 869. 7 E. C. L. 285.

Bound by surety. 5 S. & R. 329.

Bound with surety. 6 Binn. 53.

Bounded on the margin. 6 Cowen 526.
By act or operation of law.

By surety. 5 S. & R. 329.

2 Caines 64.

By a certain time or day, excludes that day. 3 P. & W.

Any other matter or thing from the beginning of the Charged in execution. 4 T. R. 367.
world. 4 Mason 227.

Approved paper. 4 S. & R. 1.

Appurtenant. Chitty's General Practice 475, note. 2
Bing. 76. 8 B. & C. 141.

Appurtenant, appendant, part, parcel. See Chambers's
Landlord and Tenant 316.

Appurtenances. 4 Yeates 142. 1 S. & R. 169. 5
S. & R. 110. Holt's Law of Shipping 404. 31
E. C. L. 174. 5 B. & Ad. 791. (27 E. C. L. 191.)
As he now holds the same. 21 E. C. L. 68.
Assignment actual or potential. 5 M. & S. 228.
Assigns. 3 M. & S. 353.

Attention, shall meet. 3 E. C. L. 497. 13 E. C. L. Clear rents. 1 Bing. N. C. 573.

329.

135

Close. 29 E. C. L. 270. 2 Bing. N. C. 98.
2145

Conclusive. 5 Binn. 387. 6 Binn. 128. 4 Yeates 551. Foreign port, place. 2 Gallis. 4.

Depending. 5 Co. 47, 48. 7 Co. 30. 9 B. & C. 755. Fully. Pow. on Mort. 83, 858.

1 S. & R. 224. 11 S. & Goods and Chattels. 7 Taunt. 191.

Household goods. 1 Johns. Ch. 329. 3 P. Wms. 335.
Improvement. 4 Pick. 204.

Indebted. 15 S. & R. 142. 3 Caines 323.

1 Wheat. 447. 5 Influence. 3 Yeates 77.

Errors excepted. Gow on Partn. 136. 3 Bro. C. C. Intended to be recorded. 2 R. 14.

Ex post facto. 8 Pet. 110. 4 Dall. 14. 6 Cranch 138. Issue, in pleading. 9 S. & R. 67.

Made. 1 Cranch 239.

3 S. & R. 255.

2 Hawk. P. C.

Original (not exclusive). 6 Wheat. 396. 5 S. & R. 549.
Other writing. 1 R. 231.

Otherwise, and not otherwise.

1 Gallis. 39.

Overt distress. 29 E. C. L. 198-9.

Own use.

4 R. 68.

Owner. 6 Nev. & Man. 340, (36 E. C. L. 435.)

Payable yearly. 7 E. C. L. 138, 141, 148. 5 B. &

Ald. 363.

Payment. 14 S. & R. 434.
Penalty. 3 B. & P. 630.

1 Holt's N. P. 45.

3 E.

C. L. 20, n. 5 Bing. N. C. 390.
Pencil writing. 1 Eng. Ecc. 406–7.
Person. 15 Johns. 356, 382.
Personal estate. 1 M'Cord 349.

162.

Personal goods. 5 Mason 544.

1 Dall. 403.

2 R.

16

Person liable. Eden's Bank. Law 146.

Make, use, exercise and vend. 31 E. C. L. 63.
Making a libel.
Matter in controversy. 2 Yeates 276. 1 S. & R. 269. Preference. 1 Paine 639.
5 Binn. 522. 3 Dall. 404. 2 Dall. 360, n.

Premises. 1 East 456.

May. 5 Johns. Ch. 101. 5 E. C. L. 46. 6 E. C. L. Prior in date. 3 Day 66.

Public policy. 9 E. C. L. 452.
Purchaser. 1 Peters 552.

Rate. 1 Hopk. Ch. 37.

Reasonable notice. 1 P. & W. 466.

Receipts. 2 Gill & Johns. 511.

Received note in payment. 2 Gill & Johns. 511.
Record and docket. 1 Watts 395.

Necessaries. Cro. Jac. 490. 3 Campb. 327, n. 7 S. Recovery. 1 Paine 230, 238.