tions upon a mere combination of words or syllables," etc. But in this quest one need not go far from home. From a recent volume of Massa chusetts reports I take the following sen tence : — "But the question is with regard to the rights of a passenger to get off the location of the rail road within which he finds himself by right." What does the sentence mean? A refer ence to the context shows that " loca tion " — a hideous word under any circum stances — here signifies premises or track; and what the judge meant to say was that the question related to the lawfulness of the manner in which the passenger attempted to pass from the railroad track to the ad jacent land, his presence on the track being lawful. In a still later volume of Massachusetts reports occurs the following sentence — all in one breath : — "If these were the only motives for the con tract, and if its contents were only what we have stated, we are not prepared to say, either for substantive reason, or because such a transaction may cover others less free from objection, that it is against public policy for one man openly to pay or to promise to pay another in order to in duce him to take part in aventure, and to become a director in the management of it." Of course, the worst fault here, and one which vitiates the whole paragraph, is that the writer begins by stating a proposition limited to the particular case set forth earlier in his opinion, and then, apparently forgetting that he has done so, concludes with a general proposition, applicable to every case. The expression " such a trans action may cover others," is also, of course, inelegant and incorrect; and the use of the word " substantive " in the sense intended by the learned judge, — though, perhaps, good authority may be cited for it, is so technical as hardly to rise above the level of legal slang. It may be doubted also if one can speak of the " manage
ment " of a " venture." Here is another specimen taken from a volume of Massa chusetts reports published within a few years : — "In the case at bar, while the defendant's herd had been exposed to hog cholera, there was evidence that a portion of it only had been af fected, and, further, that, even if affected, the meat of the animals was not necessarily unwhole some. There was no evidence that the animals whose meat was sold had ever, so far as the de fendants knew, actually had the disease; and the verdict of the jury has established that they were ignorant that the meat sold by them was un wholesome." In this passage, "while" is flagrantly misused for " although," " herd " is em ployed where the proper word is "drove," "had had " is inelegant, and the expres sion " whose meat was sold " is an al most ludicrous instance of the wrong pro noun. It very nearly implies that the flesh of the hogs could be sold and carried away, leaving them intact and alive. In the same volume there is a sentence which con tains no less than five suppositions, through which the mind of the reader has to travel, without the rest and refreshment even of a semicolon, in order to reach the conclusion. It runs as follows : — "If there had been no consolidation, and the transfer had been direct from the S. and B. Rail road Company to another Massachusetts Cor poration, we hardly can suppose that it would have been argued that the purchaser had not the same powers to take land and to complete the road, that the S. and B. Railroad Company would have had, if its time had been extended by sim ilar words before the sale." This, of course, is intelligible, but it is not easily intelligible, and instead of giv ing the reader a pleasant sensation, which a well-constructed sentence does, even upon so dry a subject as the law, its effect is to weary and depress his spirits. The same remarks would apply also to the following paragraph taken from the same volume : — "It cannot be argued seriously that because a
