Soliloquy on Law Reform. five cr thirty per cent. The latter percent age in the average case covers the risk of loss; and would not distress the average small borrower, whose principle may be sum marized thus : " I would rather borrow money
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at thirty per cent and get it, than talk about borrowing it at six per cent and not get it." I have not begun to cover the ground, as to this subject; but this article is long enough.
SOLILOQUY ON LAW REFORM. A
CODE, or not a code, — that is the question! Whether 't is better in the law to suffer The flaws and defects of numerous practiques, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by revising end them! To prune, to change, No more — and by a code to say we end Abuses, and the thousand natural pests That law is heir to; 't is a consummation Devoutly to be wished. — To prune, to change, To change, perhaps Destroy! Ay, there 's the rub; For in that sleep of law what ills may come, When we have shuffled off the dreadful plague M ust give us pause. There 's the respect That makes precedents of so long life; For who would bear the whips and smarts of law, The high judge's frown, the lawyer's charges, The pangs of satisfying debts, the law's delay, The insolence of sheriffs, and the spurns That patient merit of the policeman takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare reform? Who would judges pay To groan and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after change (Those undiscovered evils from whose ruin No government returns) puzzles the will, And makes us bear those ills wc have, Than fly to others that we know not of. Thus wisdom does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. Old Law Magazine.
