other men—i. e., a jury—that the judgment citizens were thus forced to use did not accord with that of the latter; and, having done so, to ruin the former by fine and imprisonment, because of this ex post facto decision. And, at the best, even if these twelve men should guess with the sellers, thereby to subject these business men to endless anxiety, harassment and fear. As Lord Justice Scrutton says in the latest case upon this subject:[1] "Success in every action is no consolation to a defendant, * * * and hampered by fear of such an action in the performance of his judicial duty. The same reason appears to me to apply to the functions of those administering the lunacy laws."
It must be understood that under this interpretation the guessing has to be done after a removal of all the landmarks and guides, such as market price and the price resulting from freedom, that men have been instructed and accustomed to follow for centuries.
It is believed that there is no parallel for this in all history, except in the case of the daughter of Orthus, but that gives nothing but encouragement, for, from the dawn of higher civilization, she has always been held to be a monster, whose self-destruction became inevitable upon the solving of her riddle, and the certainty that an Oedipus must appear to remedy the cruelties involved in such an interpretation. Naturally she has been inevitably considered the emblem of Death! In the present case, of course, of "Trade."
There does not appear to be anywhere a clear comprehension of what "value" means, or consists, notwithstanding the perfectly clear and scientific statement of it by Mr. Justice Holmes in the International
- ↑ 1920 L. R., 3 K. B. 197.
