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The Statistics of Legislation Author(S): Frederick H The Statistics of Legislation Author(s): Frederick H. Janson Source: Journal of the Statistical Society of London, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Jun., 1873), pp. 303- 320 Published by: Wiley for the Royal Statistical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2338916 Accessed: 26-06-2016 17:49 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Wiley, Royal Statistical Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Statistical Society of London This content downloaded from 137.99.31.134 on Sun, 26 Jun 2016 17:49:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1873.] 303 The STATISTICS of LEGISLATION. By FREDERICcK H. JANSON, ESQ., F.L.S., Vice-President of the Incorporated Law Society. [Read before the Statistical Society, May, 1873.] TinE congeries of printed matter, popularly known as the " Statutes " at Large," has long been the marvel even of those who are most familiarised with the bulk and verbosity of the Acts of our Legis- lature. Commencing with the Statute of Merton, in the reign of Henry III, Acts of Parliament have gone on accumulating unin- terruptedly through succeeding centuries, and threaten in the course of years to make up a sufficient niumber of volumes to fill the shelves of an ordinary library. The number of public Acts passed from the Statute of Merton to the end of last Session, exclusive of the ante-Union Acts of Scotland and Ireland, is i 8,Io, occupying 36,497 quarto, and 2,iog octavo pages. (The public statutes ceased, to be issued in the quarto form after the year 1870.) A quarto page contains about 21 of the matter comprised in one of the octavo edition. In a table below, I have given the numbers of Acts of all classes passed in the reign of each sovereign, and shown the average number passed in each year and each reign, distinguishing the public from the local and personal and private Acts. The number of Local, Personal, and Private Acts (including public, local, and personal Acts, local and personal Acts to be judi- cially noticed, local and personal Acts not printed, and all others not properly classed under the heading of, or printed with, the public Acts) from the Statute of Merton to the end of the Session of 1872, is 23,222. The number of quarto pages they occupy is approxi- mately 426,800. The entire quantity of printed statutes of all classes would fill about 464 quarto volumes of i,ooo pages each. It must not, however, be supposed -that these Acts of the Legis- lature, or even any large proportion of them, are in force at the present day. By far the greater number (I estimate it at four. fifths) have been wholly or partially repealed, others were passed for temporary purposes only, and some have fallen into desuetude. In the first report of the " Digest of Law Commission," the Commissioners observe, " The statute law is of great balk. In the " quarto edition in ordinary use, known as 'Ruffhead's,' with its " continuations, there are forty-five volumes, although (particularly This content downloaded from 137.99.31.134 on Sun, 26 Jun 2016 17:49:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 304 JANSON-The Statistics qf Legislation. [June, " in the earlier period) a large quantity of matter is wholly omitted, "or given in an abbreviated form, as having ceased to be in force. "The contents of these volumes form one mass without any " systematic arrangement, the Acts being placed in merely chrono- " logical order, according to the date of enactment; in many cases " the same Act containing provisions on heterogeneous subjects. A "very large portion of what now stands printed at length has "been repealed, or has expired, or otherwise ceased to be in force. "There is no thorough severance of effective from non-effective "enactments, nor does there exist in a complete form any authoritative "index or other guide by the aid of which they may be distinguished. "Much, too, contributes to swell the statute book which is of a "special or local character, and cannot be regarded as belonging "to the general law of England." One want here referred to has been largely met by that admirable work, " The Chronological Table of and Index to the Statutes," published by authority in the year 1870, and undertaken, in pursuance of a suggestion made by Lord Cairns to Lord Cbelmsford, during the time the latter held the Great Seal. A glance at its columns will show how largely repeal, amendment, and expiration have been affecting the Statutes which still find a place in our collections. We find there that, of the Statutes passed in the reigns down to and including that of George IV, fally nine-tenths have either expired, become spent, or been wholly or partially repealed; and that of the 2I7 public Acts passed during the first two years of the reign of Her present Majesty (1838 and 1839), 47 have been wholly, 29 partially, repealed; 26 have expired; and 29 become spent. Even of the 134 public Acts passed so lately as daring the eighteenth and nineteenth years of Queen Victoria (1856 and 1857), only 68 remain entirely in force; and of these several relate to the colonies, and others belong to the class of Local and Personal Acts. There were 98 public general Acts passed in the last Session of Parliament; while the number of existing Acts of the same glass repealed or amended by them amounted to 1,638; but of these 1,443 were wholly repealed by the Statute Law Revision Acts. A commission was appointed a few years since to compile a revised edition of the Statutes, which should contain only those Acts, or portions of Acts, now in force. The Commissioners have made progress with their work, but have at present only published the result of their labours down to the end of the year 1800.* This, however, sufficiently shows the vast amount of effete matter contained at all events in the earlier volumes. The revised edition *- The revision bas, I am informed, been carried down to 1810, but the revised statutes have been published down to the end of the year 1800 only. This content downloaded from 137.99.31.134 on Sun, 26 Jun 2016 17:49:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1873.] JANSON-The Statistics of Legislation. 305 of the Statutes, now published, occupies only 2,146 large octavo pages. The " Statutes at Large " of the same period, i. e., downl to the end of the year 1800, fill 8,832 small folio pages. The difficulties presented through this condition of the Statute Book to the legal practitioner, who is responsible for the advice he gives to those who consult him, may be readily conceived; and the position of the general public seems by no means a comfortable one; since every subject of the realm is presumed to know the law, and is amenable to punishment if he breaks it; in other words is required, under legal penalties, to ascertain for himself, which' of the numerous enactments on the roll of Parliament are still in force, and to regulate his conduct by them. The labour of ascertaining the actual state of the statute law on any given question is much increased by the want of care in the language employed in drafting clauses, and by the practice which has grown up of late years of framing enactments by reference to clauses contained in previously existing Acts. As Statutes are the expression of the will of the highest power in the State, and bind the public with omnipotent force, one would have expected to find them models of perspicuity and precision; that the reverse is too often the case, the sequel will abundantly show. As an illustration of the perplexities that beset those who desire no more than to perform the duties and exercise the powers com- mitted to them by Parliament, I may mention what occurred in the parish in which I reside, in connection with measures for the pre- vention of epidemic disease, and the preservation of the public health. In the summer of 1871, we found ourselves called upon at short notice to take measures in anticipation of a visitation of cholera to this country. I was asked to ascertain what powers the parishioners possessed, and in what way they could be exercised, and I sent for a Queen's Printer's copy of the Sanitary Act of 1866, which was thought at that time to have superseded the preceding legislation on that subject, and to contain what might be regarded as the sanitary code. The first point to be ascertained was with whom the power of acting lay, or, in the words of the Act, who was the " Sewer " Authority." For this information I found myself referred to a previous Act, " the Sewage Utilisation Act," and after some study succeeded in satisfying myself that the " sewer authority " was the Vestry of the parish. A Vestry was accordingly summoned without delay. The Act conferred considerable powers on the " sewer authority," and authorised it to appoint a committee consisting of members of This content downloaded from 137.99.31.134 on Sun, 26 Jun 2016 17:49:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 306 JANSON-The Statistics of Legislation.
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