Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 3).pdf/160

 is claimed to be so notorious that it is known and used generally by the taxpayers and people throughout the entire state or nation. At all events it is fundamental in the law that courts are bound to know such notorious facts, matters and usages of language as are generally known to other people. We are not regardless of the fact that the English language has reached its present state by processes of growth and development, and that new words, phrases, and abbreviations are from time to time ingrafted upon the body of the language. The process of growth and accretion will continue, and it is possible, though we do not expect the event, that the shorthand or symbol writing in question will cease to be what we now consider it, viz: a special clerical usage limited in its use, for the most part, to certain officials (United States land office officials and certain county officials) and their clerks and deputies, and emerge into common use. Should this transpire, courts and judges, under their oaths of office, will take judicial cognizance of the event, and will then uphold the validity of the symbol writing in assessment rolls as a basis of taxation, and of building up and transferring title to real estate. Should the symbol writing become gencral as a means of describing land, there would then be no more occasion to offer proof of the usage than there now is to establish any other common usage of the vernacular language. In the event supposed, the symbol writing, as a means of describing realty, would be quite as familiar to all who speak and write the language, including all well informed women and advanced pupils in the public schools, as the older methods are now familiar to them, i. e. descriptions by the use of English words or common fractions.

It is manifestly true that if the symbol writing can be established as a common custom, by a finding of fact based upon testimony, it must follow that its nonexistence as a common custom can be certified in the same manner. To illustrate our meaning, let us suppose that, instead of standing upon his objec- tion to filing the amended answer, plaintiff's counsel has seen fit to appear and cross-examine defendant’s witnesses, and then had