Law and Philology the venue of each allegation of an affirm ative fact upon which issue might be taken gradually fell into disuse and by the rules of Hilary Term, 4 William IV, it was ordered that to abolish all unneces sary statements, the venue should be stated only in the margin, except in certain special cases.33 But before the change, as above mentioned, had be come a settled fact, after the reason for two venues had ceased to operate, but before the writers of pleadings had ceased to state the two venues, "the courts began to distinguish between cases in which the truth of the venue was material and those in which it was not so." 34 The use of scilicet and videli cet then became very common, especially when the pleader did not wish to be compelled to prove as true that which it was customary to allege in his plead ings.3* As Lord Mansfield said in his Mostyn v. Fabrigas: 36 "It is necessary in such actions to state in the declaration, that the ship was taken, or seized on the high seas, viz. in Cheapside. But it cannot be seriously contended that the judge and jury who try the cause, fancy the ship is sailing in Cheapside; no, the plain sense of it is, that as an action lies in England for the ship which was taken on the high seas, Cheapside is named as a venue; which is saying no more, than that the party prays the action may be tried in London." Although this use of the words scilicet and videlicet to show that the pleader does not promise to prove true the facts following the said words was extremely
- Chitty on Pleading. 16th Am. Ed., p. *276.
Stephen on Pleading, p. 316. Rules of Hilary Term (1834). Rule 8. Reed v. Wilson, 41 N. J. L. 29. "Bishop of Lincoln v. Wolfreston, 1 Black. Rep. 495. Blackstone was one of the advocates in this case. Bouvier's Institute. Bk. 4. tit. 8. chap. 4, sec. 2, J2.
- Dakin's Case. 2 Saunders 290a. Hilary Term,
22 and 23 Car. II. Regis. Dowdale's Case. 6 Coke's Reports, *47i>. "Cowp. 176. 2 H. Bl. 161.
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common, the old reports containing scores of cases setting forth the law on their meaning, it was not, we take it, from that meaning of the word scilicet that the ss of modern days came. It was rather from the word scilicet used when the writer desired to particularize a general statement.37 And just here we cannot do better than to give to the reader the full opinion of Lord Hobart, handed down when he was Chief Justice of his Majesty's Court of Common Pleas in the twelfth year of the reign of James I, in the case of Stukeley v. Butler: 38 "Now I come to the use of a (viz) or (sc) or in English (that is to say) and the nature and force of it. It is neither a direct several clause, nor a direct entire clause, but it is intermedia. "First it is clear, that it is not a substantive clause of it self, and therefore you can neither begin a sentence with it, nor make a sentence of it by it self; but it is (as I may say) clausula ancillaris, a kind of hand maid to another clause, and to deliver her mind, not her own. And therefore, it is a kind of interpreter; her natural and proper use is to particularize that that is before general, or distribute that that is in gross, or to explain that that is doubtful and obscure." After the venue in the margin became a fixture it would be found in the follow ing form: In comitatu Middlesex, viz., ) In parochia Sanctae Margaretae ) ■ London, At the Parish ss., of St. Mary-le-Bow, In the Ward of Cheap. which would mean, "In the County of Middlesex but more particularly in the Parish of Saint Margaret" and, "At London but more particularly at the Parish of St. Mary-le-Bow in the Ward "A new English Diet, edited by Sir James A. H. Murray. »" Hobart 171. 3" Arundel's Case, Trin. 36 Eliz. In the King's Bench (1594). 40 Ware against Boydell, 3 Maule and Selwyn's Rep., King's Bench, p. 148, year 1814.
