Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/48

THE UNWRITTEN LAW herent excellence, but because it offers a free view a successful one with but scant com and untrammeled opportunity for the ex prehension of the scope and glory of the pression of the popular will and conscience Common Law, yet he can never become in the construction of laws and the adjust eminent at any English bar, or worthily ment of individual rights to new conditions. administer the law in any tribunal of Thus far it has proved an insurmount English-speaking people until the unwritten able obstacle to eminence in our jurispru law is written in his heart, and the Common dence of men of alien birth. The Old World Law rises instinctively in his mind when has sent us many brilliant minds which have he hears the tale of injustice or misfortune. deservedly taken the highest rank in other It is not the facts of the Common Law callings and professions, but hardly one has that have made it a priceless boon to been able to surmount the obstacles which humanity and the beacon light of civili the Common Law jealously puts in the path zation, but its spirit. It adopts the truth of those who seek to approach her shrine whether it be found in palace or hovel. It without comprehending the spirit it repre bows submissively to the verdict of the sents. At every point where it has touched twelve — it matters not how humble, but other systems of jurisprudence it has main bids defiance to the fiat of the king. tained its own distinctive character, but has A noted American jurist when asked drained them dry of every adaptable quality. near the close of a long and honorable career On the plains of India it has assimilated the what facts connected with it afforded him customs of a hundred peoples and the the most gratifaction, replied: "I have cor wisdom of a thousand ages. At the Cape rected one error which crept into the Com of Good Hope it has ensnared the Dutch mon Law more than a century ago, which man in its toils and applied the law of had received the endorsement of all English Holland to the arid holding of the Boer. In courts during that time — and that correc Canada it has overcome the tenacious grip tion has now been accepted at Westminister." of French custom and tradition. Louisiana It may not be the privilege of every prac has become the land of its re-birth in that titioner to heal so ancient an error, but it is code which had its beginning in America within the power of the humblest to in the brain of Livingstone, the young strengthen and confirm some beneficent New Yorker toiling in his dingy office in tendency of that spirit which is a guardian angel to the brave and free and a malign the Crescent City. It is •worth something to be enlisted in influence only to the sluggard, the craven the service of such a power, and it is well and the slave. to remember that while one may be a fair MAYVILLE, NEW YORK. practitioner and from a business point of