On the record
Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner.
Said by
Walter Bagehot
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gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot compares the complexity of law to the winding streets of cities, illustrating the convoluted nature of legal systems.
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Political philosophy is still more imperfect; it has been framed from observations taken upon regular specimens of politics and States; as to these its teaching is most valuable.
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.
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.
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
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