harmony is through a familiarity with the Constitution of the State, in its political and judicial aspects. As the permanent will of the people, their political charter dominates all other authorities. Every jural right must ultimately be determined by this standard. It is the fruit that marks the organic development of the civil life of the community. A legislator without this knowledge, is like the master of a ship who should undertake to navigate her blindfolded, or without a compass.

The next step towards legislative accuracy consists in a historical knowledge of past legislation in the same direction, together with the judicial consequences that have attended it. The State Reports will furnish this information. They may always be profitably consulted. Even when not interrogated specially upon a point at issue, their style and language will furnish the forms of expression commonly used by Courts, in applying canons of interpretation. Therefore, they familiarize us with the language of the law, which is the most proper grammar for the Legislature to study. Idiomatic phrases, derivative meanings from particular contexts, maxims unfolding settled rules of construction, and words differing in their vernacular from their etymological sense, will all be found to have given occasion for judicial interpretation. There is, consequently, an imperative necessity for seeking the legal meaning of these terms at the highest sources.

1 See article entitled "Legislative Humorists" by I. H. Hopkins, in Albany Law Journal, vol. 22, p. 385, and a similar article signed R. at p. 435, wherein it is shown that the Legislature of New York during the session of 1880, in many instances amended Acts and portions of Acts some of which had been twice repealed-passed an absurd Act relating to judgment-debtors; also another which was in conflict with the Constitution, and revised and amended sections of laws printed in an unauthorized edition of the Revised Statutes! Comment is unnecessary.

Lastly, the practice itself of legal composition is a benefit, as a logical exercise. It trains the mind in habits of ready, lucid and accurate expression, and teaches the art of conveying thought in perspicuous language. This was evidently the intention of that divine faculty of speech by which we reproduce a thought identical to our own in the minds of others, and so, hand it down from its intellectual source to future generations. Thus the Ten Commandments, given upon Sinai, and the Sermon on the Mount, preserved in written speech as so many sacred statutes, will be repeated by mankind down to the last syllable of recorded time.

CHAPTER XI.

WORDS OF COMMON USE IN STATUTES AND THEIR JUDICIAL

MEANING.

THE value assigned to particular words when used in statutes, imparts to them an importance which deserves the attention of all engaged in the duty of framing laws. As these written commandments are addressed both to lay and professional readers, it is manifestly necessary that they should speak "a language understanded by the people." Ordinary and colloquial phraseology has consequently always been regarded as the proper storehouse from which to draw the language of the law; for there can be no other more universally understood and more popular than that which is recognized as the vernacular of the community. Courts when called upon to interpret statutes, have constantly recognized the necessity of searching for the hidden meaning of any ambiguous phrases in the ordinary language of the people.

The result of years of legislation will eventually show itself in an accumulation of statutes, many of which, without being repealed have yet become obsolete through changes in the social condition of a people, and others have so often been amended or variously construed, as to make it necessary, either to digest them into a distinct code, or to pass an Interpretation Act, re-adjusting their relations to the present wants of the community, by establishing new land-marks and new boundaries for the guidance of legislation. Recognizing this necessity as a pressing one, the English Parliament, partaking of the double character of a judicial and legislative body, passed a General Interpretation Act1 in 1889 (52-3 Vict. ch. 63), which was intended to cover the entire field of needed statutory interpretation. It was, in fact, a reenactment of several existing statutes, with an enlargement of

1 "An Act for consolidating enactments relating to the construction of Acts of Parliament, and for further shortening the language used in Acts of Parliament," passed August 30, 1889. Law Reports, Statutes, vol. 26.

their scope. The following is a synopsis of its provisions, many of which might be profitably imitated by American Legislatures. Section 1. Rules as to gender and number.

2. Application of penal acts to corporations.

3 to 7; 12 to 25; 27 to 30. Definitions.

8. Sections to be substantive enactments.

9. Acts to be "public" Acts.

10 Amendments or repeal of Acts in same session.

11. Effects of repeal in Acts passed since 1850.

26. Meaning of "service by post."

31. Construction of Statutory Rules.

32. Construction of provisions as to exercise of powers

and duties.

33. Provisions as to offences under two or more laws.

34. Measurement of distances.

35. Citation of Acts.

36. Definition of commencement.

37. Exercise of statutory powers between passing and

commencement of Act.

38. Effect of repeal in future Acts.

66 42. Commencement and short Title.

Alongside however of the language in common use, has grown up the language of the law, not essentially different in its roots, although markedly so in its idiomatic application to civil rights, remedies and rules of conduct. Legal phraseology is often intertwined with historical incidents, and imbedded in local customs, religious beliefs or political traditions. All which tend to impart varying hues to the same terms as differently employed by them. There is, therefore, a legal sense to language as well as a popular And beyond this even, there is a technical sense of restricted application to particular art or science. Thus the word "BEARING" has one meaning in navigation, a different one in architecture, and a still more different one in morals. Again the word "TABLE" has one meaning in ecclesiastical law, a different one in mathematics, in literature, and chemistry, another in anatomy and another in the domestic arts.

sense.

From these simple illustrations of the adaptability of language

to all phases of human necessity, it is easy to ascend to a higher and more complicated use of its instruments. For example the common word "TENEMENT" popularly signifies a dwellinghouse, but in law, it means any estate held from and under a feudal superior. Here the word feudal does not necessarily impart a manorial lord as in the Middle Ages, but simply a person having a superior estate in kind to that of the tenant who holds under him. Hence, although lands in the United States are generally held by allodial tenure, yet tenants leasing the same are nevertheless feudatories of their landlord. So with the term servitude, which in law describes a variety of obligations either of persons or things to each other, without reference to any political status thence arising, consequently no change in the form of government can affect some of these servitudes, which may be either natural and arising from the condition of the soil; or personal or mixed; or again either rural or urban.

A comparison between the popular and legal meaning of the following words will show the importance of their right use in

statutes:

ABDUCTION. Means popularly, any form of abstraction. But in law it means forcibly taking away a man's wife, his child, or his female servant. 3 Blacks. Comm. 139, 143; Carpenter v. People, 8 Barb. 603.

ABET. Raiford v. State, 59 Ala 106.

ABOUT. Is an ambiguous word, depending for its meaning upon the context. Bradley v. U. S., 6 Otto, 170.

ACT.

A statute passed by a Legislature, in accordance with the Constitution. People v. Tiphaine, 13 How. Pr. 74. AFORESAID. Is used as referring to a preceding person, or place or thing already described. Natl. Bk. of Whitehall v. Lamb, 50 N. Y. 95; Central Natl. Bank v. Pratt, 115 Mass. 544; Beaumont v. Squire, 17 Q. B. 906. ADJACENT. In law signifies only proximity. Thus lands may be adjacent and yet not adjoining. Henderson's Lessee v. Long, 1 Cooke (Tenn.), 128; this definition qualified in People v.

1 Cushing's Domat. Civ. Law, § 1018; 3 Kent, 434; Lieber, Legal and Political Hermeneutics, passim. Vid. for more extended interpretation of Words in their judicial aspects, Lawson's Concordance of Words and Phrases; Irving Browne's Judicial Interpretation of Common Words and Phrases; Endlich's Maxwell on Interpretation of Statutes.