Walter Bagehot: “An ill-knit nation which does not recognise paternity as a legal relation, would be conquered like a mob by any other…”

But it is natural also that persons used to analyse political institutions should look at these anomalies with a little tenderness and a little interest.

At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.

These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.

Subject to this saving remark, however, I not only admit, but maintain, that our Constitution is full of curious oddities, which are impeding and mischievous, and ought to be struck out.