COMMON LAW AND MODERN CODES 155 



State courts; and the record before us exhibits a most astonishing congeries of 

 petitions and answers, amendments, demurrers, and exceptions — a wrangle 

 extending over more than twenty pages, and continued nearly two years, in which 

 the true merits of the case are overwhelmed and concealed in a mass of worthless 

 pleadings and exceptions, presenting some fifty points, the most of which are 

 wholly irrelevant, and serve only to perplex the court, and impede the due adminis- 

 tration of justice. The merits of the case, when extricated from the chaos of 

 demurrers and exceptions in which it is enveloped, depend on two or three ques- 

 tions, simple and easily decided.' 



Ill 



Have the judges in Colorado had any experience with those who, 

 disdaining the trammels of custom, have sought "out of their own 

 heads" to do things ? Let us see. It is a far cry through these three 

 centuries from the days of Edward III, when pleadings were "without 

 lameness and curiosity." "Old Time hath a wallet on his back 

 into which he puts alms for oblivion." The distinctions between 

 actions at law and suits in equity, and the distinct forms of actions 

 and suits theretofore existing, were abolished in Colorado in 1877, 

 and one form, the same for law and equity, denominated a civil action, 

 was ordained for the enforcement or protection of private rights and 

 the redress or prevention of private wrongs.^ True, the distinction 

 between contract and tort apparently remains in the constitution,^ 

 from which it will probably refuse to be driven by the legislature; 

 but the names of our old friends debt and detinue, assumpsit, trover, 

 trespass, case, replevin, ejectment, forcible entry and detainer, still 

 appear in the registry of the general statutes, enacted before and since 

 the Code,"" and all come up on occasion to be voted, unconscious of 

 the fact that they are dead; forcible entry and detainer even to this 

 day boisterously advancing "with strong hand and multitude of 

 people," the dress that he wore, or the identical company that he 

 kept, in the 5 th of Richard II in the year 138115 



The answer to my query is found in the response, tentative per- 

 haps, but courageous, of our Supreme Court to the act of the General 



< "Randon v. Toby," ji How. p. 517. 



' Colo. Code, '77, sec. i. • Rev. St. Colo. 1908, sees. 4061, 4065, 7258. 



• Colo. Bill Riihls, sec. 12. • Bac. Abr. For. Ent. A. 321; UilW Ann. SI., sec. 1970. 



