ments of the statute in order to give it effect as constructive notice; parol evidence cannot be brought in aid of any defect. Wood v. Cochrane, 39 Vt. 544. The record of a deed not executed in conformity with the recording laws is constructive notice to no one. Galpin v. Abbott, 6 Mich. 17; Isham v. Bennington, 19 Vt. 230; Laughridge v. Brookland, 32 Miss. 546; Cogan v. Cook, 22 Minn. 137; Wood v. Cochrane, 39 Vt. 544; Bishop v. Schneider, 46 Mo. 472; Van Thornilly v. Peters, 26 Ohio St. 471; Green v. Drinker, 7 Watts & Serg. 440; Kauffelt v. Bower, 7 Serg. & Rawle, 64. But see Watson v. Wells, 5 | Conn. 468; Brown v. McCormick, 28 Mich. 215. A memorandum attached to a deed and entered on the margin of the record, but not acknowledged, is not constructive notice to a purchaser. McKean v. Mitchell, 35 Penn. St. 269. Where a recorded instrument shows upon its face that the acknowledgment was taken by a party in interest, is improperly recorded and is no constructive notice; but when it is fair upon its face it is the duty of the register to receive and record it, and its record operates as notice notwithstanding that there may be some hidden defect. Yet a conveyance, though improperly acknowledged, is good as between the parties or those purchasing with actual notice. Stevens v. Hampton, 46 Mo. 404. The recording of an assignment as a notice to subsequent mortgagees is not invalidated by proof that the acknowledgment was taken in New Jersey by a notary public of New York county, when his certificate was in due form and purported to have been taken in New York. Hulburn v. Hammond, 13 Hun, 404. A party acquires no rights by recording a paper not entitled to be recorded. Gillig v. Maas, 28 N. Y. 181; Brown v. Budd, 2 Ind. 442; Dutton v. Ives, 5 Mich. 515. But knowledge of such a deed may operate as actual notice. Musgrove v. Bonser, 5 Or. 313. The contents of the deed are to be correctly spread upon the record. Terrell v. Andrew, 44 Mo. 309. The registry of a mortgage given to secure $3,000, | but by the mistake of the clerk registered for $300, is notice to subsequent bona fide purchasers, to the extent only of the sum expressed in the registry. Frost et al. v. Beekman, 1 Johns. Ch. 288. Where a mistake is made in recording a mortgage in extenso, by omitting to copy the attestation thereof, held, that the registry was not constructive notice to subsequent mortgagees for value. Pringle v. Dunn, 37 Wis. 449. Recording a mortgage in book of deeds is not duly recording it, within the meaning of the recording acts, so as to be constructive notice to a subsequent mortgagee in good faith or to affect a conveyance subsequently but duly recorded. Gillig v. Maas, 28 N. Y. 192, Recording a mortgage in the records of assignments of mortgages is not constructive notice. Parsons v. Lent, 34 N. J. Eq. 67, 70; Conklin v. Hinds, 16 Minn. 457; contra, Clader v. Thomas, 99 Penn. St. 343.

Where the recorder by mistake enters the name of another person as the grantor in the deed in place of the true grantor the same is not duly recorded. Jennings v. Wood, 29 Ohio, 261; Howe v. Thayer, 49

Iowa, 154. The entry of a conveyance out of the order of its date and upon a page which should have contained a mortgage several years antecedent in execution is not notice to a subsequent mortgagee in good faith. N. Y. Life Ins. v. White, 17 N. Y 469.

The record of a deed or mortgage is constructive notice of only what appears on the face of the instrument as recorded. Battenhousen v. Bullock, 11 Bradw. (Ill.) 665; Galway v. Machon, 7 Neb. 285; Barnard v. Campau, 29 Mich. 162, 164, and cases cited; Gate's Err. v. Morris, 29 N. J. Eq. 222; affirmed 30 id. 285. Not of all which might be ascertained by inquiries suggested by the record. Taylor v. Harrison, 47 Tex. 542. In Riggs v. Boylan, 4 Biss. 445, it was held that a grantee's rights are protected even though the recorder actually records only a portion of his deed. The index is not an essential part of the record for the purposes of notice; and a mortgage duly recorded though not indexed is constructive notice, even against a bona fide purchaser or mortgagee who dealt on the faith of finding no incumbrance in the index. Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Dake, 1 Abb. N. C. 381; Board, etc. v. Babcock, 5 Oreg. 472; Chatham v. Bradford, 50 Ga. 327. And in this case the court say: "When a deed has been duly copied upon the record book it is difficult to say that it is not recorded. The steps to be taken for easy reference, it seems to us, are matter with which the owner of the deed has nothing to do. He has caused his deed to be copied upon the public books, that is all the law requires of him, and that is all he can do. Where an assignment of the interest of the owner of a leasehold estate in fee is presented to and left with the clerk of the proper county to be recorded, the failure of the clerk to properly index it, or errors made by him in transcribing it; will not prejudice the rights of the assignee or deprive him of the privileges conferred upon him by the recording acts. Bedford v. Tupper, 30 Hun 174, 176. A party who suffers through the neglect of the clerk to properly index a conveyance must look to the clerk and his sureties for redress. Board, etc. v. Babcock, 5 Oreg. 472. The registry of a conveyance of an equitable title is notice to a subsequent purchaser of the same interest or title from the same grantor, but is not notice to a purchaser of the legal title from the person who appears by the record to be the real owner. Tarbell v. West, 86 N. Y. 280. Constructive notice from the record applies to equitable as well as to legal estates. Digman v. McCollum, 47 Mo. 372. Actual knowledge of a prior unrecorded deed is equivalent to the constructive notice operated by registration. Blaine v. Stewart, 2 Iowa, 378; Bayles v. Young, 51 Ill. 127; Maxwell v. Brooks, 54 Ind. 98; Lieman, Matter of, 32 Md. 225. An incorrect registration cannot avail a party who is not misled thereby. Gaskill v. Badge, 3 Lea (Tenn.), 144. The partial or total destruction of a record book containing a deed does not affect the record of it as legal notice. Myers v. Buchanan, 46 Miss. 397; Gammon v. Hodges, 73 Ill. 140; Shannon v. Fall, 72

id. 354. If before the purchase of real estate the purchaser, having received information that a transcript of a judgment against the owner had been filed, goes to the proper officers, and in good faith causes an examination of the records to be made, and they disclose the fact that there is no judgment lien, he is justified in acting upon the belief that there is none. Bell v. Davis, 75 Ind. 314; Rogers v. Jones, 8 N. H. 264; Simon v. Kaliske, 1 Sweeny, 304. Hoyt v. Sheldon, 3 Bosw. 267. A record of a mortgage prior to the acquisition of title by the mortgagor is constructive notice to a subsequent purchaser in good faith, and under the recording act and gives it priority to his title. Teft v. Munson, 57 N. Y. 97. Where a deed is not delivered to the grantee therein named until after it has been recopied by the grantor, the grantee takes the deed and its registration with the same effect thenceforward as if recorded by him at the date of its delivery. Jones v. Roberts, 65 Me. 273.

An unrecorded deed is not constructive notice to the subscribing witness. Vest v. Michie 31 Gratt. 149; S. C., 31 Am. Rep. 722.

CASES MUST PLEAD AND SHOW.- - Upon the question whether one took a deed without notice of a prior unrecorded one, the burden of proof is upon the one alleging bad faith. Ryder v. Rush, 102 Ill. 338. One buying land mortgaged of record, will take no benefit from declarations made to him by the mortgagor, that the mortgage has been paid. Pratt v. Pratt, 96 Ill. 184. The record of an assignment of a mortgage is constructive notice as against a grantee of the mortgagor, that the mortgagee can no longer deal with the mortgaged interests, and a subsequent discharge or release of the lien of the mortgage executed by him is invalid. Belden v. Meeker, 47 N. Y. 397; Smyth v. Knickerbocker, etc., 84 id. 589.

TWO ANSWERS TO MR. CARTER'S PAMPHLET

Mr. Carter's latest pamphlet, which I have only just seen, appears to me to deserve more attention than it has received. It is the very able presentation of a bad case, and shares, with most other productions of that kind, the peculiarity that it covertly proves the contrary of what it expressly pretends to indoctrinate.

It contains, among the rest, the following very excellent description of the work which it attempts to discourage: "Such a work, by facilitating, would save labor. It would refresh the failing memory, reproduce in the mind its forgotten acquisitions, exhibit the body of the law, so as to enable a view to be had of the whole, and of the relation of the several parts, and tend to establish and make familiar a uniform nomenclature. Such a work, well executed, would be the vade mecum of every lawyer and every judge. It would be the one indispensable tool of his art."

The main defect of the pamphlet lies in its blinking the question how the case is to be met? How the evils aimed at by the supporters of a code are to be removed? After writing around this portion of its subject to its close, it ends by restricting the " unnecessary evil, which is by possibility removable," to two main sources; the first being "the occasional

incompetency of our judges; " and the second, the "still more marked decline in the character of our

legislators." Now it needs no demonstration that these two sources have nothing whatever to do with the subject; that if all our judges were Kents, and all our legislators Solons, still the evils against which codification is directed would be the same as now.

Either the author wholly fails to show how the thing is to be done; or in a prior portion of his pamphelt, he argues that the evils in question are irremediable. "The interpretations of law, written or unwritten, must forever depend upon human [opinion; and must be inseparable attendants upon this condition." Can we take this to our bosom as a comforter, while we are being crushed by the increasing volume of reported decisions? Is not the present number of decisions incalculable, will not ten years suffice to double it, and twenty to quadruple it? Is the law in such a condition, that any one with a smaller library than Mr. Carter's, with a smaller stock of legal knowledge than he, with smaller facilities for legal reference than are afforded by the libraries located in New York, or Boston, or Philadelphia, can pretend to make up his mind approximately upon a point of law with less than a week's labor? Can he retain his knowledge of a point of law without writing a book about it? Can he transfer to others any idea of what he himself knows, invested with so much authority as will be necessary to have them believe him?

In a certain sense the pamphlet answers this question; and in this implied answer lies its leading error. It says in effect, the unwritten law of the day is right reason; and as every reasonable man has that, he has all of the law that he requires."

He says this in his opening: "The great body of the rules which determine the rights of men, have their origin in the popular standard, or ideal of justice, as applied to human action." The law of England and America," he says, "has been a pure development proceeding from the constant endeavor to apply to the civil conduct of men, the ever advancing standard of justice." "The judge's office is to apply the existing standard of justice to the new exhibition of fact; and to do this by ascertaining the conclusion to which right reason, aided by rules already established, leads. There is no arbitrary power in him; and any exercise of it by him, would form clear ground for his impeachment. Nor can any discordance be found between this theory and the fact."

Is it not singular that in writing on legal subjects, so much can be said which turns out on close security, to be inadvertent self-deception. Mr. Carter has practiced law for many years. 1 will ask him whether he can point to one lawsuit, in which the right reason of the matter was ever the subject of positive and express discussion. I will ask him to point to one page in the endless mass of reports in which ever the right reason of the thing was debated? Whether he would not smile the moment he saw a lawyer undertake to do it? Whether he has ever heard of the thoughts of any except the parties to the action tending that way? If so common a standard were at all considered, how would it be possible that there should be difference of opinion enough to keep a lawsuit open? How would it be that one lawyer should not convince the other? How would it continue questionable with every one what the decision of a case was to be, even after the argument has closed? How could there be a dissent from every prevailing opinion? How could the decision swing back and forth from side to side, as the case ascended from appeal to appeal? How could the decision of a rule in one State leave it entirely an open question, whether the same case would lead to the same or an opposite rule in another? How could opposition in their rules become almost the regular

thing between certain States? How could well nigh every rule of the common law be ruled upon in opposite ways by the same court, in the course of every ten or twenty years? Many rules being the subject of repeated decisions on either side.

Right reason is concerned with the law in one respect only; it is always present to the mind of both counsel, and of the judges; and they tacitly agree that it shall not be controverted. Beyond this limit it is of no force whatever.

And here comes the second great error in the pamphlet. The symptoms we have adverted to are of course not unknown to the author. How does he explain them? The general part of the variety of new conditions incessantly arising in human affairs will readily be admitted; but few have attentively considered none can adequately comprehend the infinite number of diversities. In the State of New York, each successive day witnesses acts, millions in number, each one of which may, by possibility, become the source of dispute, and call for judicial decisions, and no two of them be alike."

In short he ascribes the contrariety of judicial decisions to the infinite variety of cases, and the much cited changes in the forms of society. I contend that this is a facon de parler; that society does not change so fast but that acts of assembly could follow all the changes which required registration; that the infinity of acts forming the subject of judicial investigation is not nearly so great but that thousands of acts differing in their details, come under one and the same classification as subjects of legal transaction; and in short that the conflict and contrariety of judicial decisions result, not at all from necessary multiplicity in the subject-matter, but from a tendency in the adjudicating mind to vent itself in different and diverging formulæ.

Therefore the great phantom of the opponents of codification must dissolve in mist. The variety of cases which must arise, is not so great as to escape the activity of a codifier and a Senate and Assembly, and the changes in society are not so daily and hourly, that the speed of legislators cannot possibly keep up with them.

Upon the same principle he enumerates, among the evils resulting from the adoption of a code,

"7. The enforced abandonment of all hope of bringing the private law of all English speaking States to a unity,"

This seems to me to be anti-code run mad. What could be farther from unity, or from an approach to unity, than the multifarious state of the present law upon any point or question? Is there one upon which a careful counsel would advise his client to take the law of one State for that of another? Is not the necessity of care in this respect infinitely greater now than it was ten or twenty years ago? And is not the practical tendency toward greater multifariousness, instead of inversely? Codification is the only means of approximating such an end. Already we have California adopting the code of New York before New York does so for herself. A similar instance is in the German Empire, which has adopted a uniform code after the Prussian Landrecht had been adopted for a portion of it.

Another is the case of the Latin countries, where the Code Napoleon was adopted in Italy and in Belgium, by way of accommodation to France.

A most striking feature of this pamphlet is its first production of the distinction between law calculated for codification, and law not so calculated. At one place he makes the distinction equivalent to that between public law and private law, but that distinction is not preserved. I wish to say, first and foremost, that it is important to register this advance in the progress of codification; we have driven the opponents

of the measure to admit and indoctrinate that codification is desirable as to all but one kind of law. The progress that lies herein is conceivable only to lawyers. I had almost said, to black letter lawyers. The best proof of this is in the opinion of English judges, given in this same pamphlet, on various schemes of codification there proposed, some of them being codifications of the very branches of law here pronounced proper subjects of codification.

Consider, for a moment, that in including in these criminal law, you cut off fully one-half of what was anciently regarded as the common law. The maxim nulla poena sine lege was never regarded there, is not regarded there, except only in New York State since the year 1881. Now it is recognized.

In England the "Constitution and Government" would not be regarded as proper for codification. Here they are.

With regard to the decisions, however, it is not satisfactory. "While the promises of written and unwritten law are for the most part easily distiuguished and separable, there is no precise line of demarcation between them. They fall into each other at the boundary by insensible gradations, and consequently there are many subjects as to which it is a matter of difficulty to determine upon which side of the line they lie. In these cases it is not of very much importance which system is applied."

He then roughly enumerates "The Constitution and Government, the general law, social and political questions, sharp changes, procedure, real property, and negotiable paper, as the subjects of written law;" as to which we may remark, that social and political questions are somewhat difficult of specification; that if sharp changes are needed in the matter which he reserves for unwritten law, a mixture of written and unwritten law is called for, which must be very difficult of management; that at all events, nothing of this kind has been known to the English or American law of the past, and that the introduction of this new distinction is an innovation of great force and extensive effect.

He then enumerates "the general law both of contracts and torts, the law of sales, of partnership, of agencies, of corporations, of bills and notes, of shipping, insurance, and admiralty; the law governing the rights and duties springing out of particular employments, occupations, relations and engagements, as the law of carriers, of bailees, of master and servant, of husband and wife, of telegraphs, and the principal body of the law affecting the ownership of property, real or personal," as covering the immense field of subjects which ought to remain those of unwritten law. There are a number of observations which obtrude themselves in connection herewith. For instance, corporations are in their very nature creatures of positive law, and many people think it very important to keep them under close control. Bills aud notes are but another name for negotiable paper, which has been enumerated as a proper subject of codification. In regard to admiralty, Judge Donohue has said, "I entered a large office, at twelve years of age, where there was a large admiralty practice, and as such practice is codified, I dare say that I have a disposition favorable to a code which most common lawyers would not feel." So admiralty belongs to the domain of codifiable law. Shipping is distinct from admiralty to the mind of the technical practitioner; but inseparable from it in the mind of a jurist. It certainly came under Judge Donohue's observation as frequently as admiralty, and if it were not equally codifiable, it would have imbued his mind with aversion to a code. Insurance is regulated by set written contracts; they are easily controlled by legislation; and it is very important they should be. How the law

relating to real property, above included in the domain of codifiable law, is to be distinguished from the body of the law affecting the ownership and transfer of property real, we fail to see. Telegraphs ought not to have been mentioned without telephones; nor either without public heaters, and these without railroads and steamboats.

These are the principal subjects of litigation, and it seems to be intended that that branch of the law with which lawyers come in contact is to be left to itself, while the rest may be codified at leisure. Nor is this remark to be passed by: that on all these points the modern English and American law may be said to be the opposite of the ancient; that the change has been heretofore considered as having been affected by legistion; so that the most of these subjects seem already to have come under the hand of the legislator.

As to the treatment which this pamphlet gives to the historical phase of the subject "It will be observed," it says, "that the system of law by decisions is a characteristic of States of popular origin, while the system of codes is a characteristic feature in those which have a despotic origin." I take issue upon this. The system of taking the law from the cases actually decided is the system of no people except of those of England and her children. Those are, at the present day, undoubtedly popular. But this system of law is handed down from England in the times of the Plantagenets and Tudors; under whom England was by no means popular.

On the other hand the code of Solon was introduced in Athens at the time she was entering upon her career of democracy; the Twelve Tables were introduced in Rome just before the democratic era; the Koran was a code introduced as much by a people bursting its bouds and becoming free, as by a conqueror. The Prussian Code, initiated, perhaps, in 1751, but not made general till 1780, if forced upon the people, was in no manner resisted, is celebrated by all their historians as the beginning of the German nation, and grew up with the people in the period of its splendor and renown. The Napoleonic Code was begun under the republic, and in obedience to republican sympathies and aspirations. Austria (whose code Mr. Carter leaves unmentioned), and Prussia both entered upon their first decidedly republican periods in 1848, and in both that period introduced activity in the construction of their codes. As to the code of Louisiana we know how far that State was despotic when its code was adopted. The same of California.

My knowledge of the Prussian Landrecht is extremely imperfect; but in some respects very satisfactory. I am prepared to say that neither among the common people. nor in the literature of the country, has there ever been heard any thing but self congratulations on this great achievement; it is regarded as the greatest of the many triumphs of Frederic II. The formation of the German empire was immediately followed by the adoption of a code for the whole of it, to which there was no opposition, and I have never heard from lawyer or layman a word of suggestion that the code ought to be repealed. I have had opportunities of seeing how the peculiarities of American law present themselves to the mind of Germans; and cannot but say that the result tempts me to look with envy upon the state of their legislation. The same is the case with the Austrian code.

In regard to the example of France, it is but justice to say that at the time of the revolution the country was divided into thirty or forty provinces, in the southern half of which the "Droit Ecrit," or statutory Justinian Code was the common law, while the others were each for itself, "Pays Coutumiers," countries having an unwritten customary law. A lawyer was a plant of his native village, and could not flourish out

of it; very much like our own States, each of which now breeds its tribe of lawyers, prepared to find the law of every other a mass of absurdities. The idea of repealing their code would strike them as the idea of a lunatic. I venture to say it has never been proposed. How it can be called a failure is inconceivable. It is quite impossible to imagine such a state of things as a continuance to this day of a division of France into thirty little variable principalities.

The history of Rome must be now carefully adverted to. "Political motives," says our author, "led to the adoption, in Rome, at a very early period, of a system of written law, covering, it seems probable to a greater or less degree, that domain of jurisprudence which we have insisted upon as being the peculiar province of unwritten law." In other words Rome had a code ever since 450 B. C., in the form of the Twelve Tables. This code was administered by the prætors, who were elected for the term of a year. They found occasion to amend the Twelve Tables, "and in order that the public might know beforehand the extent to which this discretionary power of the prætor would be carried, it became the custom for each of these magistrates before entering upon his judicial functions, to draw up and promulgate what was styled an edict, in which the rules were laid down by which he avowed that he would be guided in his official action." This process went on for six hundred years. At last the Perpetual Edict of Sabinus Julianus closed the long line of annual legislations, and thenceforth the development of the law was conducted by means of commentaries upon that.

Now we propose to place our law upon the footing occupied by the Roman law from the time of the Twelve Tables to that of Sabinus Julianus. Our Twelve Tables are our Civil Code; when that is enacted, it will be annually amended by the Legislature by a prætorial edict in the shape of an act of assembly.

This is our answer to the charge of errors in the code: "Adopt the code, and amend it afterward!" For the reason that constant amendment is in any event a necessity of its adoption. The opponents of the code are never tired of ringing the changes on the social revolution; the untrammeled growth of the law. We do not deny this, and do not propose to interfere with it. If we had not an annual Legislature, we probably should not propose a code. We have the one and we propose the other. If the one case arises on which the whole argument of the pamphlet is erected, the "exhibiting the conditions prescribed by the code, and then falling within the class, but at the same time exhibiting other unforeseen conditions which render the operation of the statute unjust," then, for all future cases, let the Legislature amend the code as indicated by the new set of conditions. The case will arise once or twice at every session. The cases where experience will advise a modification of the code independently of the new conditions of the cases, will be at first much more frequent. After a time they will die out. This will be the actual experience of the cerrors with which the pamphlet is charged from cover to cover.

Nor will it require many years to reach such a state of things as is described for Prussia and for France. "The mass of new laws (i. e., amendments), and authoritativo interpretations which have been introduced subsequently to the promulgation of the code, is many times the size of the code itself." Well it may be, and yet nothing whatever in comparison with the mass of new laws, i. e., decisions which they would have had without a code! Yet the author has the nerve to say, "It is miserable to live under imperfect or erroneous law. It is scarcely less miserable to live under law which is liable to annual change." If ever any one

had experience of this, it is a subject of New York law of the present day without a code.

"It is agreed," says the author, "that a legislative body consisting principally of laymen, possesses no single qualification, which enables it to prosecute the cultivation and improvement of this science, and its adoption to human affairs." To this I take categorical exception. A body of lawyers would by amendments make the law worse and worse, and finally intolerable. A body representing the clients is the only one which can decide what is useful for the people. A striking instance of this is found in the case of the great council called by Catharine II, to propose a code of laws for her empire. They were selected out of the peasants, the artisans, the burghers, and the nobility. Though no code resulted from their labors, yet those labors have always been considered as the one piece of useful political work which has been done in that illstarred empire since its appearance on the stage of history.

In conclusion, there is a fatal doubleness in the results predicted from a code. When it is examined in detail, it is found that the sections "embrace only those general principles and rules which have been well established for half a century. Concerning the rules themselves, there is neither difficulty nor doubt. The claim therefore advanced by the promoter of the Civil Code, to the effect that it will supersede the necessity for consulting the present multitude of decisions and commentaries, is wholly unfounded. It is certainly safe to say that the code itself would never be consulted, or if consulted at all, it would only be for the purpose of ascertaining whether it contained any thing inconsistent with the law as derived from other sources.' This agrees substantially with what is represented to be the actual experience of California and Louisiana.

How does this agree with the main argument of the work: "If a rule clearly embracing the particular case has been enacted in writing, no question of justice or injustice can be raised. It may be that the case is obviously one which the founder of the statute did not foresee, and did not make provision for, and consequently, the enforcement of the rule as written, will work gross injustice. The law would nevertheless be enforced as it stood written and enacted."

It is clear that either one or the other prognostication will not be fulfilled. Either the code is not so vague as not to be cited, or it will not fail, by covering too many cases, to do justice. Experience in Louisiana, and particularly California, seems to point in favor of the former result. So far as the supporters of the code are sentenced to disappointment, it will probably be of the former kind. Why, then, this excitement?

It is here that the following remark comes in: "We are simply therefore to ask, is this work, having been published for nearly twenty years, at the elbow of every lawyer and judge, and, like Kent and Blackstone, in the hands of every student?" I must answer for myself: Whenever I have taken it up, I have been delighted with it, and have formed the resolution to make it my vade mecum, and to look into it in connection with every case. I have found it a material aid. Nevertheless, I have always dropped it again. To what this was owing, I am myself puzzled to tell. Partly no doubt to the fact that it is not cited, and that I could not expect to advance any causes by citing it myself." Here is the difference between this code enacted, and unenacted. Enacted, the citation will always be listened to. It will be made whenever any good result can be expected. There will thus be generated, in the minds of judges and lawyers, a habit of looking at cases in their bearing on leading principles of the law, and of understanding, always, whether the matter under discussion was a point of detail, or

of significance. Herein would be its greatest utility. It is clear that when one side has its claim upon a fundamental principle, another upon a dot or a t stroke, the former ought to prevail. It is the experience of all lawyers, that in the absence of a code to fall back upon, the latter has the better chance of success. The mind can generally grasp it more easily, and, to every technically trained mind, it is vastly more familiar.

Will you allow the space to disabuse some people's minds of the ideas that may have found entrance in them through Mr. Carter's remarkable pamphlet against codification? Mr. Carter's bitter antagonism to codification may have stimulated his energies to such industry as perhaps makes him much my superior on such a topic as the expediency of a code for New York. I will not annoy you by discussing that question. I have practised law in Louisiana, and have to the best of my ability endeavored to master the history and the sources of its code. Evidently Mr. Carter knows nothing of either. He has thrown out as authentic the general but false notion of both. I am not at all surprised at Mr. Carter-for (men his equal) Judge Thompson, author of Homesteads, etc., like Mr. Carter, assumes to criticise Louisiana decisions, and evinces in his criticism just such ignorance of the Louisiana Code, as Mr. Carter does of this code in particular, and of what a code really is. At page 61 of his pamphlet Mr. C. says:

"As in the case of Frederick, the leading motive with the Emperor Napoleon was political and dynastic. France was composed of States originally independent of each other, and still maintaining their several and discordant legal systems. It was the ambition of the Emperor to consolidate these different elements into one harmonious State and to strengthen his dynasty by the consequences which would flow from such an achievement."

The fact objectionable and obnoxious to the true history is that Napoleon gave France the code for his own motives. The truth is that Napoleon was elected on what I might call a "plank in the platform" which demanded a code. The idea of a code was not original with Napoleon. In Potter's Dwarris on Statutes and Constitutions, page 300, will be found the truth. In 1793, a very celebrated lawyer and jurist, Cambaceres, proposed a code of laws. He presented to the convention a "Projet de Code Civile." Other questions engrossed men's minds at that time, and the eminent lawyer's work did not receive that attention which it deserved. In 1795, Cambaceres being a member of the council of five hundred, presented to that body an amended "projet." It was ordered printed-nothing tending to its adoption was done. I quote, on the overthrow of the directory by the revolution of the 9th of November, the attention of the new consular government was immediately turned to the subject of a code." Napoleon made it a matter of charge against the directory "that they had not achieved a work so loudly called for by the spirit of the age, and the unsettled jurisprudence of the country.” It was a consular decree, in the first year of his cousulate, that ordered a commission to take up the three "projets" of Cambaceres and frame the codes. Napoleon but did what France demanded. Conceive Napoleon doing any thing against France's wishes for political ends not one year after the revolution which had overthrown the directory, and when he was in the first year of his first consulate. The directory was overthrown by the revolution of the 9th of November, 1799. Napoleon's consular decree was of date, August 12, 1800. It would be the truth to say-France demanded, and lawyers framed the code. Napoleon did take part and no doubt gave material aid, but the