Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/350

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¬in the judicial administration, so as, in some instances, even to produce injustice; an imper- fection, however, not complained of by those who were capable of weighing the advantages by which such rare evils are counterbalanced. But no precision in the records of customs nor in the enactments of statutes, though main- tained in judicial administration by a corre- sponding strictness, could have secured the liber- ties of Armata, without the grand pecu- liarity THAT HER LAWS ARE ADMINISTERED ¬by her people. — The rigid adherence to this popular jurisdiction, together with its correct limitation, are most striking instances of wisdom ; as it was to be feared that when this only security had been adopted against the abuses of fixed magistracy it might have been carried too far, and that neither property nor liberty could have been supported, when there was no fixed depo- sitary of the rules which maintained them. ¬It requires the precision of a lawyer to handle this subject, and I am almost afraid to touch it, though the principle seems to be simple. ¬The ¬