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There are several contemporary references to the crowded and dangerous condition of the streets of Rome at the end of the Republic. Justice Blackstone in the famous leading case of Scott v. Cf. Pliny, XVIII, 3. This custom which Varro regrets had fallen into desuetude so far as Rome was concerned was in his day still practised in the provinces.
When in my bureaucratic capacity I have come across some legislative ordinance that has fallen into desuetude because of its manifest absurdity, I have always endeavoured to apply it. There is nothing worse than a loaded pistol which nobody uses left lying in some corner of the house; a child finds it, begins to play with it, and kills its own father.
It was, in fact, merely the Licinian law over again with certain modifications, and the existence of that law would make the necessity for a repetition of it inexplicable had it not been a curious principle with the Romans that a law which had fallen into desuetude ceased to be binding.
For by the ancient laws of chivalry however much they might be falling now into desuetude if Cosimo took up the glove, the matter passed beyond the jurisdiction of the Court, and all men must abide by the issue of the trial by battle. For a long moment Cosimo hesitated. Then he saw ruin all about him. He who had come to this court so confidently had walked into a trap.
We have a Parliament that sits and jabbers lengthy platitudes that lead to nothing, while Army and Navy are slowly slipping into a state of helpless desuetude, and the mutterings of discontented millions are almost unregarded; the spectre of Revolution, assuming somewhat of the shape in which it appalled the French in 1789, is dimly approaching in the distance, . . even our London County Council hears the far-off, faint shadow of a very prosaic resemblance to the National Assembly of that era, . . and our weak efforts to cure cureless grievances, and to deafen our ears to crying evils, are very similar to the clumsy attempts made by Louis XVI. and his partisans to botch up a terribly bad business.
Such laws cannot but be felt to be oppressive and a restriction of freedom. Laws, like customs, may cease to have a significance, and they may be modified or allowed to fall into desuetude. There is, however, much conservatism, as all who are familiar with legal usage know. And laws may fail of their purpose. They may aim to diminish crime, and their undiscriminating severity may foster crime.
It would seem to be the wish of certain clergymen, who have of late brought back into use many ceremonial observances that had fallen into desuetude, to revive this ancient custom. Who should be Asked to the Wedding. The wedding should take place at the house of the bride's parents or guardians.
I know not what festive or ceremonial occasion may have drawn out this pageant; after all, it might have been merely a city-spectacle, appertaining to the Lord Mayor; but the sight had its value in bringing vividly before me the grand old times when the sovereign and nobles were accustomed to use the Thames as the high street of the metropolis, and join in pompous processions upon it; whereas, the desuetude of such customs, nowadays, has caused the whole show of river-life to consist in a multitude of smoke-begrimed steamers.
But now that regular guarantees for the security of life and property exist, the custom appears to have fallen into desuetude. These confederacies in the dual state, as in Servia, or multiple, as in the clan system of Scotland and Albania, are always strongest in turbulent times and regions. Another of the old customs of Servia was sufficiently characteristic of its lawless state.
But between 1850 and 1860 long desuetude of war, and confident reliance upon the commercial progress which freedom of trade had brought in its train, especially to Great Britain, had induced the prevalent feeling that to-morrow would be as to-day, and much more abundant.
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