20 July 1805

Evidence

Introd. Jurisprud.

Ch. II. Vices

''. I. Uncertainty

Jurisprudential law being so much better than statutory, and this being the way in which it is made, and this after the prosperity of the superior kind of law ever revered and ever learned person knowing nothing so much at least, as that the inferior kind of law should be made in the best manner of which it miserable inferiority is susceptible, here follows proposal for the improvement of it, [strictly and [...?] grounded upon the practice of the Bench as above described]. Instead of the present statutory mode of printing and publishing Statutes in the words in which they are introduced into one of the Houses in the form of Bills subject to any subsequent amendments, when a Bill is brought in to the House, let one of the Clerks be set to read it. As he reads, let notes be taken of it, by s many as will to the exclusion only of short hand writers, care being taken to allow the best seats to those who write the slowest. The notes being published or not published, the aggregate mass composed of all these published and unpublished together, would compose pro tanto the proposed improved edition of the body of statutory law. The more discordant and the more numerous the several books of Reports thus taken, the better! because the more discordant and more numerous, the nearer would be their approach to the standard of perfection, and model for imitation, the sacred sacrosanct body of jurisprudential law.

Note

The learned Reporter abovementioned, if not disqualified by his ability, would have been particularly well qualified in this respect viz: respect of this "neither writing shorthand nor very quickly."