London Legal Letter. to have exculpated him from punishment, most of us will be disposed to agree with Voltaire that on his trial " the excess of the ridiculous and the absurd was joined to the
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excess of the horrible. The culprit was brought to judgment as a prophet, and was burned, not for having been a regicide, but for having been mad." Lex.
LONDON LEGAL LETTER. London, May 6, 1895. THE Society of Comparative Legislation, which has re cently been organized in London, promises to be of very great advantage to all English-speaking communities. It had its origin in a paper read last November by Sir Courtenay llbert before a distinguished audience in the Imperial Institute. The Lord Chancellor presided; Mr. James Bryce, the president of the Board of Trade, could not be present, but he contributed a valuable letter; Lord Justice Davey, Mr. Justice Wright, Sir Henry Jenkyns and Sir Raymond West, formerly Chief Justice of one of the Indian courts, participated in the discussion which the paper elicited, and finally, " The Times " published the pa per itself, and gave Sir Courtenay Ilbert's views the en dorsement of a leader — compliments which are by no means lightly to be regarded. As stated by its author, the object of the paper was to " direct attention to the expedi ency of collecting, arranging and making more accessible information about the course of legislation in the different parts of the British Empire and in the United States of America, and to make some practical suggestions toward the attainment of this end." The interest English lawyers and legislators had in uniting the United States in the movement was several times eloquently referred to, but in no way more pleasantly than by a classical anecdote which Sir Courtenay told with great effect. " Let me," he said, "remind you of some memorable words which were spoken on a famous occasion some 2,400 or 2,500 years ago, and which have been recorded for us by the father of history. After the Persian host had laid waste the soil of Attica w ith fire and sword, two rival embassies came to Athens. One was from the great King, urging the Athenians to recog nize the inevitable, to yield to the overwhelming force of the Persian monarch, and to accept Persian supremacy on favorable terms. The other was from Sparta, imploring Athens not to desert the cause of Greece. The Athenian reply was prompt and decisive. ' There are two reasons,' they said, ' which make it impossible for us to go over to the Mede. The first is the sight of our temples in ashes, of our homes in ruins. These things we can neither forget nor forgive. The other is that we Greeks are bound to gether by common blood, a common tongue, common reli gion, and common institutions. These things it were not well that Athens should betray.' I have not translated quite literally, but nearly enough for the purpose of the il. lustration. Now there is just the same kind of identity or difference in the laws, customs, and institutions of the Eng lish-speaking race, not only throughout the British Empire, but also in those United States of America which, if we used the word colony in the Greek sense, constitute the greatest of British colonies — throughout what Sir Charles Dilke calls the Greater Britain."
The need in all communities of information as to what attempts and successes had been made by any one of the communities in the field of legislation was illustrated by the fact that the constitutional and administrative experi ments which are being tried in England are those which are on trial in the Colonies and the United States, and that there is hardly a Colonial or American debate which does not find echo within the walls of Westminster. The ques tions of state federation and state union; of the constitu tion and composition of legislative bodies; of female and popular suffrage; of the incidence of taxation; of the relief of the poor; of the control of the liquor-traffic; of the relation between the working and the capitalist classes — these and other questions, all of supreme mo ment, have been practically settled in some communities, while in others they have, as yet, reached only the state of agitation. If laws to regulate these subjects are practically successful in one country, then other countries are deeply interested in the form which they have taken. In the very matter of the making of laws themselves, consid ered as a legislative act, there is a great deal to be learned by the majority of legislative bodies. In the United States, the Supreme Courts of the various states act as a corrective body, and, at least, ensure that a given act shall be in accordance with the Constitution, although in other respects the work of the legislature may be most slovenly and even contradictory. In some of the Australian Colonies, bills are sent to an expert, for final revision, after they have obtained the approval of the legislature. In other coun tries, and in England, accomplished and experienced draughtsmen carefully prepare the bills before they are pro posed for consideration. The best of these methods should, upon inquiry, be easy to ascertain, but the difficulty at present is to ascertain how to make the inquiry. Then there is another branch of this subject which may, perhaps, be less interesting to the legislator and the soci ologist, but it is of greater importance to the active prac ticing lawyer and the careful judge, and that is the way to get at the laws of the English-speaking people, once these laws have been enacted. Lord Justice Davey, in his inter esting speech which followed Sir Courtenay's paper, drew attention to the fact that the British Empire was peculiarly well-fitted to promote the study of comparative law, because within its jurisdiction lay an immense variety of laws and legal systems. In the remnant of the Duchy of Normandy constituted by the Channel Islands (Guernsey, Jersey, and Sauk) are found the old coutumes de Normandie; in India, Hindu and Mohammedan law co-exist; in Demerara and South Africa there is the Roman Dutch law; in Mauritius, old French law; in lower Canada, the French law as it was before the Code Napoleon, and also an improved Code Napoleon. We might have added that, as the Privy Coun cil has supervision of all these diverse laws, so the United
