The subject which I have chosen to speak upon to-night is, I am afraid, one of some technicality. But it is one of very great importance. Many of you are aware that it has been the object of much discussion in Parliament and the Press during the last few years. Officers of the Crown and heads of departments have been the target of criticism for their apparent and presumed reluctance to alter the forms of the proceedings by and against the Crown, and I am informed that a bill for altering the form of these proceedings is imminent.

In his valuable article ‘Dangerous Things and the Non-Natural User of Land,’ Mr. Stallybrass says: ‘The distinction between the natural and non-natural user of land is often confused with the distinction between things naturally on the land and those which are brought or artificially created there. We have already seen that to some extent this confusion can be detected in Lord Cairns’ speech itself [in Rylands v. Fletcher]. But in fact there is nothing in common between the two conceptions except the common use of the word “natural.”’

The two manuals here referred to are known respectively as the Ecloga and the Procheiros Nomos. They are distinguished from all others subsequently edited by private jurists or the Colleges of Notaries by the fact that they were issued throught the Imperial Chancery in the name and by the authority of the Sovrans. They begin like an English Act of Parliament, by a short title and a preamble in which the Emperors address their subjects in the first person plural, indicating the occasion and announcing the purpose of their new exposition of law. They use the kind of official Romaic Greek affected by the antigrapheis or official draftsmen of the period. The language is simple and direct and the student will have no difficulty in interpreting it when he has mastered the vocabulary.