An obscure member of a legislative body dictates to his stenographer a document called a bill and submits it to the legislature. The bill goes through all the various stages provided, receives on its way more or less desultory discussion, mostly of an ex parte character, is adopted by a legislature, of whose members a majority have but the slightest, if any, acquaintance with its contents; is signed by the governor, and now has become a part of the law of the land.

In some law report, I find that a learned and famous judge, speaking on behalf of his brethren of the bench, with whom he has first consulted, enunciates a certain unfamiliar rule as being the law of the land. The court has come to this conclusion, not hastily nor without a serious attempt to understand the rule in all its possible bearings, but after careful study, assisted by the written and oral arguments of able counsel, who on their part have made an elaborate and profound study of the question, from differing points of view. Moreover, the question had already been considered, with hardly less thoroughness, in the court from which the case was appealed.