A great authority in matters of evasion once protested that he would engage to drive a coach-and-six through any Act of Parliament that ever was framed, and I believe him. So certain is language to be too wide or too narrow--to embrace too much, and consequently fail in distinctness, or to include too little, and so defeat the attempt to particularise--that it does not call for more than an ordinary amount of acuteness to detect the flaws of such legislation. Then, when it comes to a discussion, and amendments are moved, and some honourable gentleman suggests that after the word “Whereas” in section 93 the clause should run “in no case, save in those to be hereafter specified,” &c., there comes a degree of confusion and obscurity that invariably renders the original parent of the measure unable to know his offspring, and probably intently determined to destroy it. That in their eagerness for law-making the context of these bills is occasionally overlooked, one may learn from the case of an Irish measure where a fine was awarded as the punishment of a particular misdemeanour, and the Act declared that one-half of the sum should go to the county, one-half to the informer. Parliament, however, altered the law, but overlooked the context. Imprisonment with hard labour was decreed as the penalty of the offence, and the clause remained--“one-half to the county, one-half to the informer.” A Judge of no mean acuteness, the Chief Baron O’Grady, once declared, with respect to an Act against sheep-stealing, that after two careful readings he could not decide whether the penalties applied to the owner, of the sheep, the thief, or the sheep itself, for that each interpretation might be argumentatively sustained. How will you suppress the organ-grinder after this? What are the limits of a man’s domicile? How much of the coast does he own beyond his area-railings? Is No. 48 to be deprived of the ‘Hat-catcher’s Daughter’ because 47 is dyspeptic? Are the maids in 32 not to be cheered by ‘Sich a gettin’ up stairs’ because there is a nervous invalid in 33? How long may an organ-man linger in front of a residence to tune or adjust his barrels--the dreariest of all discords? Can legislation determine how long or how loud the grand chorus in ‘Nabucco’ should be performed? What endless litigation will be instituted by any attempt to provide for all these and a score more of similar casualties, not to speak of the insolent persecution that may be practised by the performance of tunes of a party character. Fancy Dr Wiseman composing a pastoral to the air of ‘Croppies, lie down,’ or the Danish Minister writing a despatch to the inspiriting strains of ‘Schleswig-Holstein meer-umschlungen.’ There might come a time, too, when ‘Sie sollen ihm nicht haben’ might grate on a French ambassador’s ears. Can your Act take cognisance of all these?