and during the whole of the proceeding, been absent beyond the seas (a). So, where an Act authorised justices to hear bastardy cases on proof that the summons had been served at the last place of abode of the putative father, it was held that their jurisdiction was not taken away by proof that the latter was abroad, and had no cognizance of the summons (b). The Carriers Act, which exempted a common carrier from liability for the loss of or injury to certain classes of goods, unless their value was declared and insured, was construed literally as exempting him from liability, even when the loss was owing to his negligence (c). It was held that section 50 of the Common Law Procedure Act of 1854, which empowers a judge to make an order on either party to a cause for the production of documents, upon the application of the other party supported by his own affidavit, did not authorise an order on the affidavit of another person in its stead (d). And the 60th section of the same Act, which empowers a judgment creditor to obtain an order for the examination of his debtor, was held not to authorise the examination of the directors, when the debtor was a corporate body (e). So, the recent Solicitors Act, 23 & 24 Vict. c. 127,

(a) Culverwell v. Melton, 12 A. & E. 753.

(d) Christopherson v. Lotinga, 15 CB. NS. 809; but comp.

(b) R. v. Damarell, LR. 3 QB. Kingsford v. G. W. R. Co., 33 LJ. CP. 307, 16 CB. NS. 761.

769.

(c) Hinton v. Dibben, 2 QB. 646.

(e) Dickson v. Neath and Brecon R. Co., LR. 4 Ex. 87.

s. 28, which authorises the imposition of a charge for costs on property recovered or preserved through the instrumentality of a solicitor, was held not to authorise such a charge, where the suit was to prevent or stop an invasion of the right to light, for this was a suit not respecting property, but respecting an easement merely, or the mode in which it was enjoyed (a) ; nor to a case where proceedings had not gone beyond a decree for an account, and the parties had then compromised without the knowledge of the solicitor of the party who thereby did recover property (b).

It is but a corollary to the general rule in question, that nothing is to be added to or to be taken from a statute, unless it furnishes adequate grounds to justify the inference that the Legislature intended something which it has failed precisely to express (c). Words, therefore, cannot be added to an Act to supply an omission which may be thought, on merely conjectural grounds, to have been unintentional. For instance, the 21 Jac. 1, having provided that the Statute of Limitations should not run while the plaintiff was beyond the seas, and the 4 & 5 Anne having made a similar provision where the defendant was abroad, the 3 & 4 W. 4, c. 42, enacted that no

(a) Foxon v. Gascoigne, 31

L. T. 289.

(6) Pinkerton v. Easton, LR. 16 Eq. 440.

(c) See per Tindal C. J. in Everett v. Wells, 2 M. & Gr. 277.

part of the United Kingdom should be deemed beyond the seas within the meaning of the former Act, but made no mention of the latter; and it was held that it could not be stretched to include it (a). There may have been no good reason for thus limiting the new enactment to the Act of James; but there was no ground even for conjecture, much less for inference, that the Act of Anne was intended by the Legislature to be included. The probably correct

conclusion from the omission was, that it had been lost sight of altogether; but this would be mere speculation.

Where a railway Act provided that the company, while in possession, under the Act, of lands liable to assessment to parochial rates, should, until its works were completed and liable to assessment, be bound to make good the deficiency in the parochial assessment by reason of the land having been taken, it was held, at first, that the company was bound to make good the deficiency in any one of the parishes through which the line ran only until the line was completed within that parish (b); but this construction was rejected by the Queen's Bench and by the Exchequer Chamber, partly on the ground that in effect it introduced the words "in the parish" in the Act; and it was held that the company continued liable to make

(a) Lane v. Bennett, 2 C. M. & R. 70; Battersby v. Kirk, 2 Bing. NC. 584.

(b) Whitechurch v. East London Co. LR. 7 Ex. 248.

good the deficiency in every parish until the whole line was completed from end to end (a).

A construction which would leave without effect any part of the language, would on similar grounds be rejected. Thus, in construing the 32 & 33 Vict. c. 51, which gives to certain County Courts power to try claims under 3007., arising out of "any agreement in "relation to the use or hire of a ship," or in relation to the carriage of goods, with an appeal to the Court of Admiralty, and power to the latter Court to transfer any such causes to itself, the Court of Common Pleas held that it did not give the County Court jurisdiction over suits for the breach of a charter-party, notwithstanding the comprehensive nature of the language used; on the ground that the literal construction would involve the anomalies of giving by mere implication a large, novel, and inconvenient jurisdiction to the Court of Admiralty, and to the suitor the remedy of proceeding in rem when his claim was under 3007. which he did not possess when it exceeded it (b). The Privy Council dissented from this construction, on the ground that it left without effect the words which gave jurisdiction over any agreement in relation to the use or hire of a ship (c); and yet it is difficult to believe that the extreme consequences from (b) Simpson v. Blues, LR. 7 CP. 290.

(a) R. v. Metrop. Distr. R. Co., LR. 6 QB. 698; Whitechurch v. East London R. Co., LR. 7 Ex. 248; reversed, however, 7 HL. 89.

(c) Gaudet v. Brown, LR. 5

PC. 134.

which the Common Pleas shrank were within the contemplation of the Legislature or the scope of the

enactment.

Where the language is precise and unambiguous, but at the same time incapable of reasonable meaning, and the Act is consequently inoperative; a Court is not at liberty to give the words, on mere conjectural grounds, a meaning which does not belong to them. Thus, where an Act made warrants of attorney to confess judgment void as against the assignees of a bankrupt, if not filed within twenty-one days from execution, or unless judgment was signed "or" execution was "issued" within the same period; the Court of Queen's Bench refused to alter "or" into "and," and "issued" into "levied;" though the passage was unmeaning as it stood, and the proposed alterations would have given it an effect at once rational and consistent with the conjecturally probable intention of the Legislature (a).

SECTION III.- -THE CONTEXT-EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCES.

The foregoing elementary rule of construction does not carry the interpreter far; for it is confined to cases where the language is precise and capable of but one construction. But language is rarely so free from ambiguity as to be incapable of being (a) Green v. Wood, 7 QB. 178; see also Doe v. Carew, 2 QB. 317.