Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-12-03

themselves and their money to aid in the
construction Of railroads, has begun the
reaction against the former tendency Of
courts and Legislatures to let cities run
toward indulgence in a system of subsi-
dies which too often tends to their finan-
cial embarrassment. In our own state the
opinion validating the Williamsport bonds
was the expression of a slender majority
Of the court, the odd member being won to
support of it under circumstances which
created a feud in that high judicatory,
which has been a scandal ever since.
New tax Laws, prohibition of railroad
abuses and discrimination, the require
ment from corporations of greater public
conveniences, and the imposition of
new liabilities denote the growing jeal-
ousy of the people against the aggressive
ness of corporate power, though the re-
lations of one to the other becomes more
and more serious problem as railroads
become more indispensable and their accu-
mutation Of capital and Capitalization of
power more dangerous. Agriculture, arbor-
iculture, drainage of large areas, forestry,
homestead exemptions, and irrigation are
some practical subjects of legislation which
show that the interests of that class of
people who compose half our adult popu-
lation are not totally lost sight of in tho
changes of the statutes. The vagaries,
oddities and whimsicalities of legislation
make a long list and must be studied to
see to what limi. of asininity men appointed
to make laws will stretch their appoint
ment. OF one thing Mr.. Phelps feels Ger
tain, that the dignity Of the legal profess
sion can only bo maintained by keeping up
the standard of education for it. For which,
he could have found no better testimony,
than in the fact-that does not seem TO
have occurred to him-that large part OF
our legislatures are made up of lawyers
who too often fail as lawmakers and whose
defective education, as well as the neglect
of the profession to watch and check the
course of making new laws. is largely re.
sponsible for much that cumbers and some
that disgraces our vOluminous statute
books.
In summing up his review, the author
of the address We have beeu considering
freely expresses his opinion against the
tendency to apply codification to gen
eral jurisprudence. Tho history Of tho
common law is that Of our institutions,
our language, our literature and our re-
ligion. The experience of England and
America has demonstrated tho super,
iority Of a government and justice founded
upon general principles, over that which re
poses upon any collection Of arbitrary
written rules. In the same view the as.
sumption of omnipotence by legislatures
all the while confessing their ignorance
and exposing their corruption-theirh hasty
inconsidera:e and illadvised changes OF
the statutes, the cutting and carving, the
patching and plastering, from year to
year, all have combined to teach the ruin
GUS effects of too much legislation. That
country is best governed which is gov
erned least, especially by frequent new
legislation. lie who lives to sec the sphere
of legislation further and further enlarged
until finally the whole law. of the land
will he turned into statutes, to he hacked
at with the jack-knives of annua! and III
ennial legislators, "will see also the de
cay Of the administration of justice ant
the legal profession, and the gradual cx
tinction Of those principles Of civil liberty
which the history of the world shows tC
be inscparable from the common law