The Style of Legal Sots

In legal acts, innumerable qualifications and limita¬tions are needed, in order to make the statement strictly represent the intention of the law-maker. "Instead of laying down a general proposition, which is partially false until it has received its proper restraints, the framer of the act endeavors to evade even this mo¬mentary falsehood by coupling the restraints with the very primary enunciation of the truth : e. g. A shall be entitled, provided always that he is under the circum¬stances of e, or i, or o, to the right of X. Thus even a momentary compliance with the false notion of an ab¬solute unconditional claim to Xis evaded." * Embar¬rassed by the confusion resulting from this endless in¬volution of limitations, so acute a lawyer and compe¬tent a scholar as Mr. Pitt confessed that he was lost in a labyrinth of clauses, so that he could not understand what the law allowed, and what it prohibited.