COMMON LAW AND MODERN CODES 153 



tended fact of duress, and therefore I say it was not executed under 



duress.""' 



I heard two boys disputing. One said to the other: 



"You swiped my sled at the Hill School yesterday." Plea by the other: 



"I never was at the Hill School in my life, and I didn't take your old sled, and I 



can prove it." 



Now, here was the "special traverse" with a vengeance — the 

 indirect and direct denial, then the verification — everything complete, 

 and issue joined, and trial at once by battle. No mystery or lawyer's 

 trick about this. And so, out of its naturalness, or its human qualities 

 perhaps, the special traverse took its place. 



II 

 Once upon a short time a man had a numerous family of children, 

 with good old-fashioned names, John and Rebecca and Samuel and 

 William and Mary Jane. Seized by the spirit of reform he resolved 

 to abolish these names as utterly useless and confusing. But one day 

 he wanted one of them, and he said to his eldest-born, but with some 

 hesitation, "Here — you — you boy that I used to call John — ^come up 

 here." Did he hope to save time and trouble by his expedient, or 

 to escape the essential and enduring, if distracting, distinctions 

 between William and Mary Jane ? 



If one wrongfully took and detained my horse, I had at common law 

 the choice of redress in four forms of action, perhaps five, especially 

 if the horse were sold — trespass, trover, detinue, replevin, assumpsit. 

 My punishment was swift and deserved if from professional indolence 

 or neghgence I chose the wrong one, or sought to avoid the trouble 

 necessary to such a perfect understanding of the case as would be 

 requisite to adapt the declaration, or failed to consider the pleas 

 according to the particular circumstances existing in it. 

 An idle attorney besought a brother 

 For something to read, some novel or other, 

 That was really fresh and new. 

 "Take Chitty," replied his legal friend, 

 "There isn't a book that I could lend 



Would prove more novel to you."— J. G. Saxe. 



■ Mar. Civ, Proc. C.L. p. S39 note. 



