can be little doubt that it was the rigid adherence of the common law courts to established precedent which caused the rise of an independent tribunal administering justice on more equitable principles—the tribunal of the chancellor, the court of chancery. And the old common law courts—the king’s bench, common pleas and exchequer—were always, as compared with the court of chancery, distinguished for a certain narrowness and technicality of reasoning. At the same time the common law was never a fixed or rigid system. In the application of old precedents to the changing circumstances of society, and in the development of new principles to meet new cases, the common law courts displayed an immense amount of subtlety and ingenuity, and a great deal of sound sense. The continuity of the system was not less remarkable than its elasticity. Two great defects of form long disfigured the English law. One was the separation of common law and equity. The Judicature Act of 1873 remedied this by merging the jurisdiction of all the courts in one supreme court, and causing equitable principles to prevail over those of the common law where they differ. The other is the overwhelming mass of precedents in which the law is embedded. This can only be removed by some well-conceived scheme of the nature of a code or digest; to some extent this difficulty has been overcome by such acts as the Bills of Exchange Act 1882, the Partnership Act 1890 and the Sale of Goods Act 1893.
The English common law may be described as a pre-eminently national system. Based on Saxon customs, moulded by Norman lawyers, and jealous of foreign systems, it is, as Bacon says, as mixed as the English language and as truly national. And like the language, it has been taken into other English-speaking countries, and is the foundation of the law in the United States.
COMMON LODGING-HOUSE, “a house, or part of a house, where persons of the poorer classes are received for gain, and in
which they use one or more rooms in common with the rest of
the inmates, who are not members of one family, whether for
eating or sleeping” (Langdon v. Broadbent, 1877, 37 L.T. 434;
Booth v. Ferrett, 1890, 25 Q.B.D. 87). There is no statutory
definition of the class of houses in England intended to be included
in the expression “common lodging-house,” but the above
definition is very generally accepted as embracing those houses
which, under the Public Health and other Acts, must be registered
and inspected. The provisions of the Public Health Act 1875
are that every urban and rural district council must keep registers
showing the names and residences of the keepers of all common
lodging-houses in their districts, the situation of every such house,
and the number of lodgers authorized by them to be received
therein. They may require the keeper to affix and keep undefaced
and legible a notice with the words “registered common
lodging-house” in some conspicuous place on the outside of the
house, and may make by-laws fixing the number of lodgers,
for the separation of the sexes, for promoting cleanliness and
ventilation, for the giving of notices and the taking of precautions
in case of any infectious disease, and generally for the well
ordering of such houses. The keeper of a common lodging-house
is required to limewash the walls and ceilings twice a year—in
April and October—and to provide a proper water-supply.
The whole of the house must be open at all times to the inspection
of any officer of a council. The county of London (except the
city) is under the Common Lodging Houses Acts 1851 and 1853,
with the Sanitary Act 1866 and the Sanitary Law Amendment
Act 1874. The administration of these acts was, from 1851 to
1894, in the hands of the chief commissioner of police, when it
was transferred to the London County Council.
COMMON ORDER, BOOK OF, sometimes called The Order of Geneva or Knox’s Liturgy, a directory for public worship
in the Reformed Church in Scotland. In 1557 the Scottish
Protestant lords in council enjoined the use of the English
Common Prayer, i.e. the Second Book of Edward VI. Meanwhile,
at Frankfort, among British Protestant refugees, a controversy
was going on between the upholders of the English
liturgy and the French Reformed Order of Worship respectively.
By way of compromise John Knox and other ministers drew up
a new liturgy based upon earlier Continental Reformed Services,
which was not deemed satisfactory, but which on his removal
to Geneva he published in 1556 for the use of the English congregations
in that city. The Geneva book made its way to
Scotland, and was used here and there by Reformed congregations.
Knox’s return in 1559 strengthened its position, and in 1562 the
General Assembly enjoined the uniform use of it as the “Book
of Our Common Order” in “the administration of the Sacraments
and solemnization of marriages and burials of the dead.”
In 1564 a new and enlarged edition was printed in Edinburgh,
and the Assembly ordered that “every Minister, exhorter and
reader” should have a copy and use the Order contained therein
not only for marriage and the sacraments but also “in Prayer,”
thus ousting the hitherto permissible use of the Second Book of
Edward VI. at ordinary service. “The rubrics as retained
from the Book of Geneva made provision for an extempore
prayer before the sermon, and allowed the minister some latitude
in the other two prayers. The forms for the special services
were more strictly imposed, but liberty was also given to vary
some of the prayers in them. The rubrics of the Scottish portion
of the book are somewhat stricter, and, indeed, one or two of
the Geneva rubrics were made more absolute in the Scottish
emendations; but no doubt the ‘Book of Common Order’
is best described as a discretionary liturgy.”
It will be convenient here to give the contents of the edition printed by Andrew Hart at Edinburgh in 1611, and described (as was usually the case) as The Psalmes of David in Meeter, with the Prose, whereunto is added Prayers commonly used in the Kirke, and private houses; with a perpetuall Kalendar and all the Changes of the Moone that shall happen for the space of Six Yeeres to come. They are as follows:—
(i.) The Calendar; (ii.) The names of the Faires of Scotland; (iii.) The Confession of Faith used at Geneva and received by the Church of Scotland; (iv.-vii.) Concerning the election and duties of Ministers, Elders and Deacons, and Superintendent; (viii.) An order of Ecclesiastical Discipline; (ix.) The Order of Excommunication and of Public Repentance; (x.) The Visitation of the Sick; (xi.) The Manner of Burial; (xii.) The Order of Public Worship—Forms of Confession and Prayer after Sermon; (xiii.) Other Public Prayers; (xiv.) The Administration of the Lord’s Supper; (xv.) The Form of Marriage; (xvi.) The Order of Baptism; (xvii.) A Treatise on Fasting with the order thereof; (xviii.) The Psalms of David; (xix.) Conclusions or Doxologies; (xx.) Hymns—metrical versions of the Decalogue, Magnificat, Apostles’ Creed, &c.; (xxi.) Calvin’s Catechism; (xxii. and xxiii.) Prayers for Private Houses and Miscellaneous Prayers, e.g. for a man before he begins his work.
The Psalms and Catechism together occupy more than half the book. The chapter on burial is significant. In place of the long office of the Catholic Church we have simply this statement:—“The corpse is reverently brought to the grave, accompanied with the Congregation, without any further ceremonies: which being buried, the Minister (if he be present and required) goeth to the Church, if it be not far off, and maketh some comfortable exhortation to the people, touching death and resurrection.” This (with the exception of the bracketed words) was taken over from the Book of Geneva. The Westminster Directory which superseded the Book of Common Order also enjoins interment “without any ceremony,” such being stigmatized as “no way beneficial to the dead and many ways hurtful to the living.” Civil honours may, however, be rendered.
Revs. G. W. Sprott and Thomas Leishman, in the introduction to their edition of the Book of Common Order, and of the Westminster Directory published in 1868, collected a valuable series of notices as to the actual usage of the former book for the period (1564–1645) during which it was enjoined by ecclesiastical law. Where ministers were not available suitable persons (often old priests, sometimes schoolmasters) were selected as readers. Good contemporary accounts of Scottish worship are those of W. Cowper (1568–1619), bishop of Galloway, in his Seven Days’ Conference between a Catholic Christian and a Catholic Roman (c. 1615), and Alexander Henderson in The Government and Order of the Church of Scotland (1641). There was doubtless a good
