Anglo-Saxon Law in Liberia The Supreme Court in 1878 upheld a devise of real estate under a will by showing that the common law prin ciples of wills, in the absence of a statute, had prevailed in Liberia since its earliest days.* In the same year, the Court heldt that an offense not punish able by any statutory penalty which would bring it before the Court of Common Pleas, could be punished by whatever penalty should be determined to be fair by applying the principles of the common law, and might come before the Court of Common Pleas, after all, on indictment. That a common law system of criminal jurisprudence was adequate for all the needs of justice, was the implication of a decision handed down as late as 1899. In that year the Supreme Court heldt that statutes defin ing specific crimes and punishments were not necessary, with Blackstone and Kent serving as guides in the application of common law principles, for the convic tion of crime, and adjudged two prisoners guilty of assault and battery under the common law. One year later, however, in 1900, the Legislature saw fit to adopt 'Roberts v. Roberts, p. 107; compare with Brown v. Broom, p. 14. t Paine et al. v. Republic, p. 101. (In Flowers et al. v. Republic, p. 334.
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a criminal code, which was more specific than anything previously enacted. In view of the apparent adoption of the common law in toto by the young republic at the outset of its career, it might be supposed that the jurispru dence of the country would be topheavy; that the people would find them selves overburdened with a mass of unin telligible precedents and rules which they could not follow without great confusion and injustice. But this was not to be the result. Liberia was far more for tunate than those older communities of the eastern hemisphere which erect be tween jarring races a barrier of cum brous organic law. The common law, though legally in existence in Liberia since an early date, was as a matter of history gradually made over into an organic law of the country by the process of adjudication as fast as the necessity arose. This process favored the com plete assimilation of the common law tradition. The highest court has always had the good fortune, apparently, to be composed from the first of judges who have avoided pedantry and have labored to serve the ends of justice and increase the stability of the system that they have been called upon to administer.
