such discriminations as seemed essential to meet the wants and requirements of the people with whose rights they were dealing. The difficulty experienced in performing this duty can be the more fully realized when the fact of the scarcity and lack of books and libraries which existed in earlier times is considered. Going back to Blackstone's time we read of provincialisms, which have no place in the present age; but we must remember that the limitations upon this doctrine must be prescribed by each new country for itself; and the great western portion of the United States, at the time of the first settlement of the Northwestern Territory, was indeed a new country. The states from which came the pioneers of our state may have deter mined many questions of law, but it was necessary for Ohio to settle them for itself, simple though they may be. Thus we find one of Ohio's greatest jurists, Peter Hitch cock, at a very early date discussing a question which at present is considered ele mentary, but had to be first settled in the then infant state. The point cannot be more aptly illustrated than by a quotation of Judge Hitchcock's language in Commis sioners v. Butt (2 Ohio, 351), when he said : — "Whenever a question of law has been settled in England, the courts in this coun try are in the habit of adhering to such deci sion. It is undoubtedly correct that such should be the case. But to adhere blindly to English decisions when no good reason can be assigned for them, or when no other reason can be assigned than that it has been thus decided, to do this without inquiring whether the same reasons exist in this coun try as in that, would be foolish in the ex treme. It is a useful maxim that when the reason of a law ceases, the law itself should cease. A particular law or rule of law might be very beneficial in England, or in one of our sister states, which, if enforced in Ohio, would be attended with injurious
consequences. Influenced by these circum stances, this court has ever been in the habit of looking to the effect which would follow the adoption of any particular rule or decision." Further illustrating the ideas suggested, quotation is also made from Judge Hitch cock in Morris v. Edwards (1 Ohio, 208), where, in discussing the rule of construing contracts, he said : — "It must be recollected also that this court, in giving construction to contracts, cannot interpret the same terms or word made use of in contracts to mean one thing in one part of the state, and a different thing, in another. The rule 'of law must be uni form with the whole body of the people. The same words used in a grant would con vey an estate of inheritance in the county of Trumbull or Hamilton, and it will not be contended that if by general consent of the inhabitants of the county of Trumbull should attach a meaning to those terms which in a grant convey an estate of inheritance, dif ferent from that which the law attaches, that the court would be justified in changing the interpretation of those terms to meet the feelings, wishes, or general consent of the people in that particular section. In inter preting contracts, the law of the place where the contract is made is to govern. But in what does the law of Cincinnati and its vicin ity differ from the' law in Cleveland or Stcubenville? We are called upon to know certain facts of public history, which must go to change these principles in that parti cular section of the country, so far that a rule of law is to prevail different from that which prevails in other parts of the state. If this be correct . . . agreements contain ing precisely the same terms, and relating to the same subject-matter must be con strued to mean different things, according to the understanding of the people in the various counties, or even towns in which they shall be executed. . . . This is carry ing the rule that the lex loci must govern to an unreasonable length."
