may The mode of keeping Parish accounts fills a large portion of the Bill; yet it seriously be questioned, whether such details may not safely be left to the parties interested. But the greatest objection to this, and to all details, is, that too much is attempted to be corrected by law, and too little is left to work its own cure. This is the prevailing evil of modern legislation. From the habitual jealousy which is entertained of discretionary authority, it is thought that the legislature can never do too much in regulating the remotest contingencies of their object, and thus they frequently defeat their purpose by the minuteness of their enactments. In those governments, where the people have not acquired their share of influence, this, is no doubt an invaluable security; but as the administrators of the law become more virtuous, and the improved state of society counteracts their private biases, a greater latitude of interpretation must be left them; and instead of being the mere expositors of a text, they ought to be the dispensers of justice. An objection of another kind occurs to the author, against another Bill introduced into Parliament, during the last session, entitled "A Bill to amend the Laws relating to the Settlement of the Poor." Residence alone is to be the ground of settlement: a sounder and simpler principle, no doubt, than the multifarious ones which are acted on at present. But is there nothing to deter us in the necessity which will be created for a new exposition? The settlement under Charles's Statute, simple as its language is, has taken nearly five hundred adjudged cases in the higher courts, and a multitude in the lower which no man can number, to determine its meaning and can the legislators of the present day render their language less equivocal? or have they yet any secret by which they shall secure a uniformity of interpretation? It seems to be forgotten, that language at the best, is but an imperfect vehicle to convey with preciseness the just relations of things; and that as we descend into particulars, it becomes still more arbitrary, and can be considered as little more, than as furnishing suggestions which every one accommodates to his previous notions and habits. No two persons can read the same passage with the same impressions; and it is contradicted by all experience to expect that Acts of Parliament, which enter so minutely into human affairs, should receive a common interpretation. This is a question of singular curiosity, and involves in it more practical benefits than the majority will suppose. Legislators would do well to turn their attention a little to the impossibilities they are aiming at by their present attempt at explaining, and expounding, and enforcing every thing by a written law, and leaving little to be done by the common sense of mankind. It is an evil into which we have unwarily been driven by our jealousy of arbitrary power; but let us not, therefore, go to the other extreme, losing thereby the spirit of all law, and having nothing left but a huge mass of text, which none but Scholiasts and Pundits can interpret. |