21, 22.) It seems scarcely necessary to say that laws ought, where it is possible, to be composed in the language most intelli gible to the persons whose conduct they are to regulate. In countries where the great majority of the people speak the same language (as in England or France), no doubt about the choice of the lan guage for the composition of the laws can exist. In countries however where the people speak different languages, or where the language of the governing body differs from that of the people, or where the bulk of the people speak a lan guage which has never received any lite rary cultivation, a difficulty arises as to the language in which the laws shall be written. Where the people speak dif ferent languages, authentic translations of the original text of the laws should be published. Where the language of the governing body differs from that of the people (which is generally the case in newly conquered countries), the laws ought to be issued in the language of the people. It is comparatively easy for a small number of educated persons to learn a foreign language; whereas it is impossible for the people at large speedily to unlearn their own, or to learn a new tongue. Thus the Austrian government
in Lombardy uses the Italian language in all public documents. When the lan guage of the bulk of the community has not received a literary cultivation, the language used by educated persons for literary purposes must be employed for the composition of the laws. Thus in Wales, the Highlands of Scotland, and the west of Ireland, the language of the laws and the government is not Celtic, but English ; and in Malta, where the bulk of the people speak a dialect of Arabic, the laws are published and ad ministered in Italian, which is the lite rary language of the island.
An able analysis of the logical struc ture of a legal sentence, and an explana tion of the most perspicuous and conve nient manner of arranging its several parts (consisting of antecedent or subse quent conditions, limitations, exceptions, &c.) will be found in a paper by Mr. Coode, appended to the Report of the Poor Law Commissioners upon Local Taxation (3 vols. folio, 1843).