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The Green Bag
formed mind must fail to do its whole duty intelligently.
The need for simpli
fication here is recognized by the advo cates of the Short Ballot, who have my
most sincere good wishes. The mass of our statutes has grown so great that the volumes constitute a library in themselves and require another
library of indexes and digests and guides to ascertain what the law is. We are continually trying to simplify this con dition by consolidations and revisions and codifications, all of which are use ful.
which authority shall be followed. I wish that our judges could realize ofii cially what so many of them agree to personally — that restating settled law in new forms, however well it is done, complicates rather than simplifies the administration of the law; that the
briefest of opinions usually answers the purpose of the particular case; and that the general interests of jurisprudence justify reasoned opinions only when some question of law is determined which
has not been determined before by equal
so great that it begins to seem as if before long we shall have to burn our books like the Romans and begin anew. And indeed, where decisions can be found in support of every side of every proposition, authority is in a great measure destroyed and we do begin anew
authority. On every side the increasing compli cation of life calls for vigorous and deter mined effort to make the working of our governmental system more simple. Our primary oonoem as lawyers associated to consider the public aspects of our professional work and to promote the usefulness of the profession to the com
in determining by the light of reason
munity, is with our own procedure.
The mass of judicial reports has grown
Curia Advisari Vult By Mn. Ins-rice DARLING‘ PARODIST'S success to crown — The travesty I wrote,
When first I wore my wig and gown, Green Bag can gravely quote —— Nay, praise it, as a thing apart,
Where legal genius flames, While each full phrase betrays the art Of learn'd Lord Justice James. In sober earnest or in sport, Green Bag, did you mistake
For wise pronouncement of the Court A jest no Judge could make? ‘See page 162 infra.
