Sketcher.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 410, 17 March 1904, Page 3

Sketcher.

'"»•■' :"»-.-• ■-■- ■ /■■- SOME LEGAL ODDITIES. 8T was enacted of old in Borne that the written laws of the country (lex scripts) should be exhibited in public places, so that no excuse on the ground of ignorance should avail those who infringed them. Caligula, we are told, purposely wrote these in very small characters, and then had them hung m high places; so that the people could not read them. Our authorities do not even 'make so much pretence at compliance with the ru'es as. he did; they do not publish the laws abroad at all. From time immemorial our Acts of Parliament have been drawn in a slipshod and careless manner. As vague and unintelligible as an Act of Parliament has long been a by-phrase. The late Daniel O'Connell originated the saying that a coach and six could be driven through one. The law reports abound with cases arising out of their umntelligibility. In fact, our statute-books are positively encumbered .with a number of Acts repealing parts of previous enactments, Acts to amend and explain others, and bo on. Sheridan wittily compared these amending supplements to the story of • The House that Jack Built' In Charles ll.'s reign an Act was passed requiring a I placed over every doorway, ster, the King's favourite, is ve complied literally with the the statute, but he would on seffer his lamp to be lighted, as the Act did not contain hat effect. Another Act of prohibited the doing of a cerauder pain of transportation; dned a clause usual in most hj totally out of place in this, ihe penalty to be divided le King and the informer, issed early in the reign of '.. for the protection of timber terates all which it was supicome under that denorainaa years later it was deemed t> pass an amendment, adding already given poplar, elder, 8, and hornbeam, all of which Uybeen omitted, thus showing owledge of the draughts man ie Act, and also of the gentleire entrusted with its passing through committee in Parliament, was Badly deficient. By an Act of Edward VI. it was made a capital felony to steal horses. Afterwards it was considered doubtful whether this applied in regard to a single horse, and an explanatory Act had therefore to be passed to settle the matter. Nearer our own time a more ludicrous thing still occurred. A law was made subjecting hackney coachmen to a penalty if they did not carry a check-string. The acute Jehus appear to have complied with the strict reading of the enactment, but to have artfully retaliated upon their persecutors; for a fresh law had to be passed the following session requiring all public coachmeu to hold the string in their hands. Lawyers are, no doubt, extremely careful in drawing legal documents; yet it has often happened that' very costly blunders have been committed by them. A celebrated conveyancer once lost his client no less a sum than £I4OOO per annum through omitting the word 'Gloucester' in a deed. The first Lord Denman drew his own will, and made a terrible muddle of it. Mr Justice Crowder, an eminent judge of over half a century ago, also drew his own will, but actually omitted to execute it in proper form. Since then a remarkable blunder was made in a deed. Lincoln's Inn was exempted from poor-rate as being extra parochial, and the bounds were set out in a private Act of Parliamentj but from oversight or carelessness the lawyers omitted to insert the garden. The consequence was that the buildings therein —the hall, chapel, library, &c—were duly rated to the poor, and at no less than £4,000 per annum. Then there is the old case of the great cotton magnate, Arkwright, who inadvertently threw away a comparative fortune by a stroke of the pen. Sir B. Wigram had married his daughter, and he was desirous of benefiting him to the extent of a million in his will. Had he given him the sum, he would have duly received it in full, of course; or had he left it to his daughter, she would have had to pay 1 per cent, tax only, and her husband would have been legally entitled to the whole legacy directly it was paid to her. But by leaving the sum to his son-in-law, who was no blood relation, the legacy duty on the bequest amounted to £IOO.OOO. Thus, through ignorance, a man who was most careful in money matters threw £90,000 away. The law is different now, and the Death Duties' Act claims a large share of estate and other property and legacies. This law is considered so harsh as to cause many ingenious endeavours to be made to evade it. It has become the practice of late years to have both legal proceedings and documents printed, instead of being '-engrossed by the law writers as formerly, in order to prevent errors of omission and commission. In fact the law writers' profession is nearly gone as a consequence. Expense is saved and portability secured, but thesa are not the only recommendations, Punctuation is altogether omitted, it not being deemed advisable to leave it to the intelligent fancy of the compositor and printer's reader. Experience having demonstrated iu many cases that an entirely opposite meaning to that intended by the contracting parties, or testators, has been given to the documents, it is now generally dispensed with. The above constitute a few of the legal ambiguities which history has given us, but others could easily be cited did space permit.