JB/028/125/002

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26

Common Law.

given put upon the word "immemorial" in the foregoing observations
is, it may be said, too strict an one. To say that
a custom shall not be deemed an immemorial one, if
any time period however remote can be shewn at which
it did not obtain it had not as yet commenced, is as much as to say that no
custom whatever shall be deemed an immemorial one.
Some such period by going high enough, may in every
instance be found. At the worst, The deluge at least if all others fail.
Of if a period applicable to the particular country in
question be required, to our own in the present case the fo æra of the Britons, the
period anterior to the first settlement of the Saxons, may
always be assigned, as a period prior to the commencement
of any custom we can have now. This certainly
deserves consideration. Not that all Lawyers, nor
in particular our Author would be content with so
limited an antiquity. "Our antient Lawyers", he himself
informs us, "and particularly Fortescue, insist
"with abundance of warmth, that these customs are as
"old as the primitive Britons, and continued down,
"through the several mutations of government, unchanged
"and unadulterated".† † p.64 Our Author, indeed willing to shew himself
exempt from prejudice, acknowledges goes so far as to because Selden
had acknowledged it gone so far before him as to acknowledge, so that this assertion
"must be understood with many grains of allowance".‡ ‡ ibid.

In other Talking at like these his predecessors at random, and
without any view of the parts of that whole of which
he was pronouncing, he allows joins with them, not as
to the whole indeed of those customs, but still it should seem

Identifier: | JB/028/125/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 28.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	028	Main Headings	comment on the commentaries
Folio number	125	Info in main headings field	common law
Image	002	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	4
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	b25 / e26 / b27 f27 / e28
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	[[watermarks::[monogram] [britannia with shield emblem]]]
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	9390
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