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Show 1 "HOW NOT TO DO IT.M We think it is in "Little Horrit" that Charles Dickens left the main thread of the novel to devote de-vote a chapter on what he designated the "British Circumlocution Office." The chapter dealt with a young man who had invented a useful article and desired to protect it by patent. It followed him from office to office in the British Circumlocution temple. In the morning the young man presented himself before the clerk of Lord Barnacle. In the evening he left the office of Lord Tite Barnacle Bar-nacle with instructions to call again at the office of Lord Barnacle and tell them "what you want to know, ye know." The chapter sends the young man to various other offices after he is dismissed by the Barnacles and Tite Barnacles. He has paid out in fees to the Barnacles and others, in quest of information, all the money he had saved to pay the government for the audacious act of inventing something useful. Ho was actually fined for "wanting to know." He gave up in despair. de-spair. The moral of the chapter points to the reversal re-versal of the aims of British government through asinine administration. Instead ot applying ap-plying itself to the task of how best to do it, ill was conducted on the principle of "how not to do it." Dickens did more through "Little Dorrit" to disestablish government humbug and make Barnacle construction of statute odious than a dozen parliaments were able to do. We need some writer in these days like Dickens. Dick-ens. Somebody to show up the Barnacles and Tite Barnacles of our own country. Somebody to impart im-part irony to characters in romance along with affection. af-fection. A novel of that kind is a good tonic for bracing up lawyers and judges so that they could perceive wisdom in the primitive way of administering adminis-tering justice; so that they may be guided by the essence of law, the intention of law, instead of taking advantage of technical blunders. Such a novel might take in a case where conviction con-viction was secured in one court and punishment evaded through decision of another, based upon a clerical blunder. In other words, where a guilty man goes scot free owing to an error of language in the form of complaint. It happened in Salt Lake City. For the purpose of avoiding personality, we will call the defendant A and th judge B judge of a. district court. The nature of the action, civil or criminal, which started the proceedings before court, does not mattei. A, the defendant, was attorney for one of the parties at law, it being a state case, and A acted as attorney for the person prosecuted. At the trial before the police judge it was found that A had spirited away or "persuaded" the principal witness to absent herself at the trial. Upon conviction con-viction A wras sentenced, but he took an appeal to the district court and put up the required bonds. Right here is where the principle of "how not to do it" confuses the interpretation of statute. stat-ute. Xo appropriation is made to carry on a night school in the county attorney's office, so blunders are expected to turn up occasionally. The clerk who spelled out the complaint to the district court innocently wrote "dissuaded" instead of "persuaded" the witness to leave the jurisdiction of the police trial court. When A appeared before be-fore the district court, his attorneys produced a law dictionary, and pointed out that the definition of "dissuade" is "to induce not to." Ergo, the woman was instructed by A to appear in court instead in-stead of not to appear the very reverse of the act for which he was tried and found guilty. Xothing clearer in language if Judge B were simply teaching teach-ing school instead of interpreting law and administering admin-istering justice. The attorneys had the dictionary, the dictionary had the judge. A was diseharged and his bondsmen released. In defense of Judge. B's decision it may be argued ar-gued that like cases at law have been decided the same as this one. But is it a good defense ? When has it come to pass that precedent must govern common sense? Precedent is out of harmony with court decisions every day. In Illinois a judge will grant' an injunction that another will deny in Iow'a, based upon the same principles of law. Another error in the complaint which A's attorneys at-torneys set up was the misspelling of a name Marcenus instead of Marinus. This added another an-other factor to the judge's decision. Yet we are reminded by boards of election canvassers that a vote is not lost through unintentional misspelling of a candidate's name, and such decision is supported sup-ported by appellate courts. Otherwise fraud would be successful. Is the majesty of popular suffrage of less importance than the decisions of district courts? It was Daniel O'Connell who said that no. law was ever enacted by parliament through which .he could not drive a horse and carriage. That saying begs the question, Is law purposely made a driveway drive-way for lawyers and judges? Evidently it is when it operates on the principle of "how not to do it." Oh, that we had less law and more judges like Haroun Al Raschid, the caliph of Bagdad, of whom we read in "The Arabian Xights." |