Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/255

NOTES. 239 are registered as they are for far other reasons than that of inability to pass the examinations necessary for entrance to the regular classes. One other fact especially worthy of notice is that the present Second Year class is now larger than it was in its first year, numbering 112 this year as against 101 last year. This is something which has never happened before, at least since the present system of examinations began, and in itself alone is something rather remarkable. The natural tendency, of course, is that a class in the Law School, like a class in college, should steadily diminish in numbers from its first to its last year. But in this instance it is gratifying to see that the number of men who fell out at the end of the first year was so small that it could, even without reckoning the few who for various reasons had failed to receive promotion to the present Third Year class, be more than replaced by the number entering to advanced standing. The following list shows the number of students as they appeared in the Catalogue of 1890-91, and as they will appear in that of 1891-92 : — 1890-91. Third Year 44 Second Year 73 First Year . 101 Special Students 6 r Total 279 1891-9)8. Third Year 48 Second Year 112 First Year 142 Special Students 61 Total 363 Judicial Grammar. — The Review is indebted to the Chief Justice of Montana, Hon. Henry N. Blake, for an exhaustive research (the substance of which is given below) into the usages of the bench, both in this country and in England, in regard to the use of number (i. <?., whether singular or plural) in terms which are necessarily employed with great frequency in instructions or opinions. The subject is one, as the Chief Justice remarks, of form rather than substance, the use of in- correct grammar not being material from a legal point of view. Sir Edward Coke, in the preface to his Commentaries upon Littleton, says : " In school divinity, and amongst the glossographers and interpreters of the civil and canon laws, in logick, and in the liberal sciences, you shall meet with a whole army of words, which cannot defend them- selves in bello grammaticali, in the grammatical war . . ." It is probably to meet the confusion arising ex bello grammaticali that the canon of interpretation was established, that statutory expressions in the singular number shall be deemed to include the plural, and vice versa. The question is, shall we say, "the majority of the court are," or "the majority is," "the court are," or "the court is," "the jury are," or "the jury is," etc., etc.? The Chief Justice finds a great di- versity among the members of the bench in the use of these terms. After citing a very large number of authorities, he comes to the conclu- sion that the highest number of jurists has sanctioned the use of the ex- pressions " the majority are," " the court is," " the jury are." Why the distinction should be made between the jury and the court, except in the case of a single judge, it is difficult to imagine. It probably arises from the fact that the court, though really composed of several individ- uals, is (or are) vulgarly looked upon as an awful entity ; whereas it is always difficult to remember that the jury are not " twelve men good