4 July 1805

Introd. Jurisprudential

Ch. II. Sources

''. 3. Reports

Printed memorials, called Reports: containing accounts of Judicial Decisions together with the Judicial Dicta to which they gave rise.

Hitherto, decisions and dicta have been considered only in the abstract: it remains to speak of the physical bodies the printed books, in which the written signs of these discourses are exhibited in a material and concrete form.

A lawyer who happens to be present in court while the arguments on behalf of the parties for and against the decision called for by the plaintiff's demand, and the arguments of the Judge or Judges in support of the decision they are about to pronounce are delivering taken what is called for his notes of the case: that is sets down certain words as containing the tenor or at least the /at any rate/ purport of the whole or a part of which on the occasion in question is /was/ said by such or such a Judge, more particularly, of several Judges by the presiding Judge: with or without the arguments of the Advocates as he thinks fit! This note, when printed and published is called a Report: and a book containing a collection of such notes a Book of Reports.

In any such Report will of course be contained an account more or less explicit /clear/ and copious of the particular decision, and of the general dicta, direct and collateral, decisive and argumentative, on which it was grounded.