FICTIONS LEGAL AND ILLEGAL
CRILYTHING has its opposite, or, as a herald might say, its counter-charge ; and by this rule, legal fictions present an in- Term which may be called illegal fictions—the legal fictions of the lawless.
It is a legal fiction that the Ecclesiastical Courts are courts of justice. It is an illegal fiction that divers priests and prelates in Ire- land object to murder. Dr. WHale has been questioned, and he cannot give a direct answer affirming in the cloth any absolute intolerance of assassination.
It is a legal fiction that the taxes on letters and salt in France are to be reduced : the reduction is to take place in the year 1850; a period in the condition and constitution of France which can only be the subject of fiction, so uncertain must all practical spe- culation be.
It is an illegal fiction that Oxford under-graduates spend the parental allowance on "necessaries," or pay their "just debts." It is a legal fiction that Dean and Chapter " elect " a Bishop. It is an illegal fiction that the Oxford Convocation has the power to disqualify a candidate for episcopation. It is a legal fiction that "the King never dies."
It is an illegal, that is an unauthenticated fiction, that Mr. John O'Connell' or any O'Connell for the time being, "dies on the floor of the House" every time that he says he will ; or that Dean Merewether "would rather die on the spot than have be- trayed the slightest trace or have felt the very minutest sensation of inconsistency or vacillation."
Previous page
