ence extant to-day that gives any adequate idea of the circumstances and historical reasons that caused its birth. Those articles appearing in most of the better known encyclopædias are very conspicuous for their inaccuracy and brevity, which brevity was undoubtedly caused by lack of knowledge relating to the subject. The admirable works upon the Magna Charta by the Hon. Sir William Blackstone and Mr. Richard Thomson, are so rare and so difficult to obtain, that they are unknown to most of the readers of to-day. The work of Mr. Thomson, while it leaves little to be desired, is so very exhaustive, that it is impossible, without much study of his book, to get at the facts and circumstances in a brief manner. It is the work of a lawyer, and appeals particularly to them. It is always difficult to avoid tiresome dryness if the object is to give great and exhaustive information, and while Mr. Thomson has avoided dryness by his admirable style of writing, he has not made his work sufficiently concise to be

of value to the hurried and busied reader of to-day. The result is, the almost total lack of knowledge on the part of a majority of the English-speaking people of the history of the Magna Charta. How many have read

the Charter itself?

To the time of the granting of this wonderful statute, the people of England had no other rights than custom, and such additional privileges as the kings in their own peculiar way saw fit from time to time to grant to them. There was no established and recognized law other than custom. There was no parliament. There was no body of men empowered to make laws, either with or without the king's permission. Everybody regarded the administration of the law as being vested in the king, and when he was kind and wise, the people were happy under his government, as they were during the reign of Edward the Confessor; but when he was overbearing and domineering, as was William the Conqueror, the opposite status existed, and as a consequence created much misery.

Where for any length of time the people had enjoyed any particular privilege, they became used to it, and this custom of enjoyment became so rooted in their minds and habits, that they considered it an established right, and therefore the law-the common law. While they were not disturbed in the benefits derived from these customs or laws, they did not demur to the rule then existing. Of course as time went on and the population was increasing, particularly in the cities and towns, new conditions would arise demanding new and greater concessions from the king, which sometimes were granted and sometimes not. Especially were they not granted, if by the granting the king was asked to part with some coveted right of his own which was dear to him. This granting of favors and privileges, or as they were called, laws, were invariably the result of petitions addressed to the king, by or through the barons. In most cases they were the result of pressure, either direct or indirect. Direct when the barons, clergy, and people

clamored so loudly for what they wanted that the king dared not refuse; indirect when the king, asking for grants of aids, or scutages or other taxes, granted them as a recompense to appease a clamor he knew would otherwise arise. But in any and all cases pressure was existent to force their creation. It was so in the case of John and his granting of his charter. That instrument was the result, of pressure, and very great pressure, the most severe, perhaps, that was ever inflicted upon an English king. His struggles against its granting were very long and severe, and it is really surprising that during all this intestinal strife and turmoil, John did not lose his life, as did Charles I.

The effect upon the subsequent history of England that this charter created has been more beneficent than is generally conceded or understood. It is the one great and single act of any of the English kings that of itself stands out sharply and clearly as a starting point from whence all law must

flow. From the present time we need go back but to this charter for our fundamental law; from that time back we must rely solely upon custom, and what that was is only conjectural. Never was. it written down definitely, and so set out that it could be handed to us as codified law. Those laws which are attributed to Edward the Confessor, and which I include in this work in Part 2, are the only laws we have, and the only knowledge we have of what, perhaps, were the customs at that time. But these laws are unfortunately robbed of their great value because, instead of being written in or near the time of that king, they are now generally conceded to be forgeries of the fourteenth century. It is, however, generally agreed that this table of laws were existent at that time, and were, so far as they go, the customs of the times; but that they were all of the general rights, and that they contain no particular modification suitable to a change of three hundred years, is not accepted. Therefore their value as accurate portrayers