Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/483

 THE GREEN BAG note, or not of note." Groom 'v. Herring, n N. C. 398. But in December, 1848, in the case of Henry vs. Henry (31 N. C. 279) in the Supreme Court of the same state, Justice Richmond Pearson says: " The other word ' distributees ' is new in pleading, but my Drother Nash and myself deem it admissible to denote the per sons who are entitled, under the Statute of Distributions, to the personal estate of one who is dead intestate. No one word has here tofore been used for that purpose, and it has been necessary, in order to convey the idea, to make use of a paraphrase or set of words." That is the decision of the court, and thus established the word " distributees " as good legal English; but Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin in the last mentioned case says: " But ' distributees ' is not a word at all known in the law or the language. Until my brothers told me they knew what it meant, I must humbly beg pardon for saying that I looked upon it

as a newly invented barbarism, and without any settled sense. I believe I may add that up to this day it has not obtained admission into any American dictionary, though at least one of them has been supposed to have taken in every word that could possibly be tolerated. Pleadings and the entries of Judg ments and Decrees ought to be in the language of the law. For them there are precedents, settled long ago by the wise and the learned, and used from generation to generation by those who were and are as discreet and well informed as any among us can claim to be. I think it, and always thought it, right to observe them myself, and would fain beg the respect of others for them; asking why despite should be done to forms venerable for their antiquity, certain in their meaning, and, for these reasons, insuring order and precision in the despatch of business and the sense of records."