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The Green Bag

formed mind must fail to do its whole duty intelligently.

The need for simpli

ﬁcation here is recognized by the advo cates of the Short Ballot, who have my

most sincere good wishes. The mass of our statutes has grown so great that the volumes constitute a library in themselves and require another

library of indexes and digests and guides to ascertain what the law is. We are continually trying to simplify this con dition by consolidations and revisions and codiﬁcations, all of which are use ful.

which authority shall be followed. I wish that our judges could realize oﬁi cially what so many of them agree to personally — that restating settled law in new forms, however well it is done, complicates rather than simpliﬁes the administration of the law; that the

briefest of opinions usually answers the purpose of the particular case; and that the general interests of jurisprudence justify reasoned opinions only when some question of law is determined which

has not been determined before by equal

so great that it begins to seem as if before long we shall have to burn our books like the Romans and begin anew. And indeed, where decisions can be found in support of every side of every proposition, authority is in a great measure destroyed and we do begin anew

authority. On every side the increasing compli cation of life calls for vigorous and deter mined effort to make the working of our governmental system more simple. Our primary oonoem as lawyers associated to consider the public aspects of our professional work and to promote the usefulness of the profession to the com

in determining by the light of reason

munity, is with our own procedure.

The mass of judicial reports has grown

Curia Advisari Vult By Mn. Ins-rice DARLING‘ PARODIST'S success to crown — The travesty I wrote,

When ﬁrst I wore my wig and gown, Green Bag can gravely quote —— Nay, praise it, as a thing apart,

Where legal genius ﬂames, While each full phrase betrays the art Of learn'd Lord Justice James. In sober earnest or in sport, Green Bag, did you mistake

For wise pronouncement of the Court A jest no Judge could make? ‘See page 162 infra.