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1) RS
This to come immediately before the Homoio nominia & anti-nominia as being a preparation to it.
l.Voluminousness Number - Burn.
That form of terrific immencity under which so many Titles in
the Law make their appearance to the mind that would posess
them, depends not solely upon the total quantity of contents,
but upon the number of different Acts containing. It is the
number which first strikes upon the attention, and before the
eye has separately taken measure of them, one occupies as much
space in the imagination as another - A man catches up his
Idea of the whole quantity from the numbers and that of the
quantity of each one of that number, from some one or two, that
strike his imagination first in order or most forcibly; which
perhaps may be the largest.
At first glance they are estimated, numbers non-pondiric numero non pondire: by
tale and not by weight: and the first glance is all that many
a man can prevail upon himself to give them.
True it is that could a man conquer this first impression he
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might see at length, that the real substance lay within a compass
tolerably narrow. but the misfortune is, the mischief is already
done: the mind is already falscirated, contracted and dispirited: and the man is
turned in to fight his way through the labyrinth under the discouragement
that inseperably attends the idea of such a mass
of difficulties.
Besides in how small a space soever that substance be concentred -ated,
the reader's attention must not confine itself to within that
Space. His attention is equally demanded by the words -
which constitute that substance by those which making help no
thing towards it, & by those which mar it.
Whether a word does good or [whether it does] mischief it is equally an object of concern: attention & there is not a word in a Statute that does no good but what is liable to do mischief
The Law of a Title thus diffused through a variety of Statutes
may not unaptly be characterized, according to the
vulgar symbol, by a bunch of Needles, each carefully packed
up in a separate Hamper: and so entangled are the goods
with the packing, that it must be weighed off straw by straw
before they can be cleared of it.
COMPOS: Whole together. Number of Acts. Inconveniences of.- Burns
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There is unfortunately this difference that the more straw
and wadding there is, the more apt a man is to prick his
fingers. It would be rather a difficult matter to pack up
[a parcel of] a dozen Needles in more than a dozen Hampers, but
it is the easiest thing imaginable to dispose a dozen of
propositions into twice the number of statutes, and yet
every Statute have a share - a proposition may to betrimmed
and spliced, and altered 20 times over by as many
Statutes; till it be brought back to what it was at first
& yet be no more that a single proposition all the while.
We have already had shall hereafter have occasion to notice of a Statute which
would fill a moderate 8vo page made for the sole purpose
of turning an "or" into an "and" here the waddens are [Fare & Fret] bears to
the needles goods the proportion of about 499 to one.
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The regulations respecting the single article of Coals are
piled up be dispersed in so few as 40 different Statutes. How much
wadding does the reader imagine there is there.
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Supposing in the whole they exceeded not the compass of
a Load, they would be more commodious convenient for Carriage collected in one
large one, although the weight and quantity of contents
were still the same.
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N.B. The benefit which would arise from the distributing
of the Law under the Title or to the same number of
Laws which it now occupies, in conformity to the like number
of different classes of the persons concerned in it, no
wise contradicts what is said above. Each of them would
still have not a single Act - & in the Collective Code -
they would be in one.
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Identifier: | JB/079/061/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 79.
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079 |
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061 |
compos: whole together number of the acts - inconveniences of burns |
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001 |
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copy/fair copy sheet |
1 |
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recto |
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[[watermarks::gr [crown motif] [britannia with shield motif]]] |
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25503 |
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