Between a frank admission of an incomplete consideration of a complicated and badly presented case and such blunt ex post facto legislation as 5 Edward VII., chapter 12, I should have preferred the former.  The Act is what would once have been called a dangerous precedent.  To-day precedents, good or bad, are not much considered.  If we want to do a thing, we do it, precedent or no precedent.  So far we have done so very little that the question has hardly arisen.  If our Legislature ever reassumes activity under new conditions, and in obedience to new impulses, it may be discovered whether bad precedents are dangerous or not.

THE END