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Show 326 Acrs RELATING Part 11L promife to throw light upon the inten- tions of a legillator when they are obfeure. But it neither 7‘: "' nor ought to be Sect. II. TO THE Commas. 327 But if by good fortune they have done in one inflance what they ought to do in all, and given to the exprellion of their will amplitude of the enaéliug part be limited that generality which is capable of ex- tending the rcmedy to other fituations of things than that particular one, in which the individual mifchief happened to {pring by the narrowncfs of the preamble. up; it neither ought to be, nor has it been a rule of law, when the preamble {peaks ofa particular cafe, and the enacting part cftablifhes a general proz'ilion, that the It is in the [Oren/72M} generally that we find an the rule, that the providence or felicity called forth the exertion of the lcgillator's of preceding lcgiflators thould be frufirated by fucceediug interpreters. Too much, will : it is the $013} of the law (that is, the indeed, would it be to lay, and very hard only part of the (lilctJLIrfe to which with upon the unlettered fubjeél, were he never intimation of the przrz‘ic'm'tzr milkhief that propriety belongs the name of law) that contains the provilion made againll mif- chiefs of the like kind in general. The views of legiflators, it is to be confided, have been apt in general to be too eon- tracted; they have been too apt to content themfelves with applying a particular and narrow remedy to the individual mill- ehief that happened to have {truck them.. '1‘?' , ' 3 Abrulgemcnt, ' See Bacon Title Statute, and halfa dozen authorities there cited. But to know what obedience he fhould pay to a law, unlel's he knew the hillory of the times it pall‘ed in. The flatute in quellion feems to have been by no means inconliderately penned : it points in the preamble to fome individual cafe or cafes, as having been the occalion of that general provifion which it was prepared in the body to el'tablilh. lt {peaks of " doubts that had been moved " concerning car/(21): 15/725]; oftreafons, &c. Y 4 " and |
