“These clauses are the crowning glories of the great charter.”[4] Mr. Hallam calls them its “essential clauses,”[5] being those which “protect the personal liberty and property of all freemen, by giving security from arbitrary imprisonment and spoliation.”[6] The same high authority observes that these words of the Great Charter, “interpreted by any honest court of law, convey an ample security for the two main rights of civil society.” The principles of this clause of the Great Charter, which, if we look backwards, are lost in antiquity, were subsequently confirmed and elucidated by statutes and charters of the reign of Henry III. and Edward III. entitled “confirmationes cartarum.” “The famous writ of Habeas Corpus was framed in conformity with the spirit of this clause; that writ, rendered more actively remedial by the statute of Charles II., but founded upon the broad basis of Magna Charta, is the principal bulwark of English liberty, and if ever temporary circumstances, or the doubtful plea of necessity, shall lead men to look on its denial with apathy, the most distinguishing characteristic of our constitution will be effaced.”[7] De Lolme[8] speaks thus of these famous clauses, articles, or chapters: “They insured that no subject should ever, in any shape whatever, be molested in person or effects otherwise than by the judgment of his peers, and according to the law of the land; an article so important that it may be said to comprehend the whole end and design of political societies.” The same powerful testimony is given by Guizot and De Tocqueville. It is precisely these very clauses, thus endearingly eulogized by these great historians and lawyers of various nations, which stand violated both in letter and in principle by the Contagious Diseases Acts.