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Show TOO MANY LAWS ARE OVERWHELMING AMERICANS Americans are fairly overwhelmed by law because of the avalanche aval-anche of legislation, according to Harold C. McGuigan, veteran Kansas Kan-sas attorney in an address made recently before the Kansas State Bar Association. Mr. McGuigan pointed out how Congress had been almost continually grinding out legislation for years and pointed ou! that there are now no less than 15,000 sections of the United States statutes. In addition to this there are more than 1 1,000 sections ol the state statutes and the number is constantly increasing. He said in part: "These various statutes are so complex that two courts will seldom sel-dom reach a like construction. The federal statutes reach such greal numbers that no lawyer in America has a comprehensive knowledge of them. Some lawyers may be expert in finding them in the sense that some birddog might be expert in finding quails, but these lawyer; no more know the statutes than the birddog knows the number ol quail in the covey he is pointing." Mr. McGuigan deplored the legal maxim which sets forth tha( ignorance of law is no excuse. In view of these volumes upon volume: of laws, many of them beyond comprehension, he said it would be ar absurdity to invoke the maxim and it does violence to reason. |