The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1906-02-16
Francis B. Lee Points Out
Many Sins of Omission
and Commission Of For
mer Legislatures
HASTE is POOR POLICY
CARELESS DRAWING OF A MEAS
URE LIKELY TO RENDER IT
UNcoNsTITUTIoNAL-sOaI SOME IN
STANCES.
Special to ..The Jersey city News. =

Special to ''The Jersey City News'')
TRENTON, Feb. 13, 1905. While
Governor Stokes urges on the present
Legislature haste in doing the peoples
business, he is not an advocate of haste
that makes poor and defective laws, He
has in times past sent messages to the
Legislature calling attention to long sem
tences and improper punctuations, which
have resulted in many new rules being
adopted along the Governors line of sug-
gestion.
Last week there was presented to the
Governor by Francis B. Lee, of this city,
clerk of the commission to compile and
edit the public acts of the Legislature Of
New Jersey, which work is to be known
as ''The Revised Statutes of New Jer-
sey," containing all of the acts published
in 1896 and known as "The General
Statutes of New Jersey together with
the volume of legislation from the year
1896 to the year 1905, inclusive, many in
teresting acts of omission and commits
sion of previous Legislatures.
OF the acts of omission possibly the
most notable defect is to be found in the
pamphlet laws of 1902, page 583. This
statute is known as '.a general act relat-
ing to negotiable instruments the pur-
pose of the legislation being to pass laws
in New Jersey uniform with the laws of
other States on the subject.
A final section of this act calls atten-
ton to a schedule Of Laws repealed and it
was the evident intention of the Legisla-
ture to annex to this general negotiable
instrument act" such schedule. Of all
Legislation affecting daily business infer
ests, no more important act has been
passed in the State during recent years
Yet the Legislature failed to annex the
schedule of repealed acts and today il
would probably be necessary in case OF
litigation for the Court of Errors and
Appeals to determine what the Legisla-
ture really intended to do in the matter
of repeating previous laws upon the sub
ject of negotiable instruments many of
which laws are to be found under the
title of 'promissory notes in the Cen
eral Statutes
As an instance of hasty work, the leg
islative history of san act concerning
clerks to grand juries," approved March
8, 1877, may be cited. This act is re-
pealed by pamphlet laws of 1896, page
939. In spite of the repeater a supple
1nent to the original act was approved
March 13, 1901.
These instances are by no means
unique. A simple examination Of the
elaborate records of the commission will
find other and as equally serious errors
which have been due to haste in the null
tiplicatfon of the statutes. As to the
matter of the total volume of the laws Cd
the State of New Jersey, there are to be
found in the general statutes" and the
pamphlet laws including 1905 seven thou
sand and one acts. OF course there are
many repealers and very small percen-
and DEGREES q dissolution. 1t is a con-
spicuous fact that of all of the total
amount of statutory law in the State of
New Jersey today, twenty-five per cent
of it relates to municipal corporations, in
cluding the special classifcafions of bor-
oughs, borough commissions. cities. chos-
en- freeholders, FIRE and police, municipal
corporations, towns, townships and vii
lagos. It is unquestionably true that of
this Twenty-Five per cent. two-thirds is
special in character, and has been drawn
for the purpose of evading the constitu-
tional provision that mo private or spe-
cial law shall be passed relating the in
ternal affairs of town sand counties; ap-
pointing local officers or commissions to
regulate municipal AFFAIRS
While there have been revisions of acts
to be found under the special clsssihca-
tion Of boroughs and townships, no at
tempt has been made TO revise the acts
related to cities. This Is probably due
to the almost insurmountable difticulties