Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/669

 wooLRiDGB i;. m'eenna. 655 Koch V. Bridges, 45 Miss. 247, 25Sj and reeognize the danger of sub- stituting the caprice or will bt the judge for the command of the Btatute. Nevertheless, there is ino doubt ^Hatever that from the beginning of pur la w. the courts have exercised the power of depart^ ingjrom the letter of the statute to attain the object of the legislature in passing it. The Statute of Merton, c. 3, required a certain char- acter of case to be tried before the first jury, but it was construed that where there was no first jury it might be tried before the others ; "for the statute (albeit it be penal) shall not be so literally expounded that if it icannot be tried per primas jwratores, that it shall not be tried at all, for verba debent intelligi cum effeetu." 2 Inst. 84, cited in an instructive opinion on this subject by the court of last resort in New York,. — People v. Sup'rs of Ulster, 34 N. Y. 268, — ^^and in Rex v. Loxdale, 1 Burr. 445, everywhere recognized as the leading case, liord Mansfield declared that "there is a known distinction between circumstances which are of the essence of the thing required to be done by an act of parliament and clauses merely directory. The precise time, in many cases, is not of the esserice." Idv And, as ia well expressed in People v. Sup'rs of Ulster, supra, the indicia hj which the courts detereaine the intention of the legislature are so well known, and the rules by which a statute is held to be directory or imperative have been so long in practice, that — i ■ , ■<' Legislative bodies must be presumed to liave enacted atatutes with reierence to them, as it is in their power to use language so that the statute must be «onsidered mandatory, thereby excluding the power of the court, tpconstrue them as directory. ihese rules do not subvert, but carry into effect, -the, inten- tion of the law-giver, as it is to be gathered from the phraseology of the stat- ute. A strict and literal adherence to the letter and form o'f a statute in miner or non-essential particulars Will often defeat a remedy or destroy a right which it was the principal intention of the legislature to create or pro- vide." The supreme court, in U. S. v. Kirby, 7 Wall. 482, 486, says : "AU laws should receive a sensible construction. General terms should be so limited in their application as not tq lead to injustice, oppression, or an absurd consequence. It will always, therefore, be presumed that the legisla- ture intended exceptions to its language which would avoid results of this character. The reason of the law, in such cases, should prevail over its letter." Again, in French y. Edwards, 13 Wall. 506, 511, it says: '■ihere are, undoubtedly, maiiy, statutory requisitions intended for the guide of offlcers in the conduct of business devolyed upon them which do not limit their poWer, or renderits exercise in disregard of the requisitions inef- fectual. Such, genferaliy, are fegulatioiis d'esigned to secui^e ordef, systeii;,