William Henry Maule (1788 – 1858)
English lawyer, member of parliament and judge.
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Fictions of law must be consistent with justice.
My lords, we are vertebrate animals, we are mammalia! My learned friend's manner would be intolerable in Almighty God to a black beetle.
An enactment for the favour and liberty of the subject ought to have a liberal construction.
"As the crow flies"—a popular and picturesque expression to denote a straight line.
Nominal damages are in effect, only a peg to hang costs on.
Common sense still lingers in Westminster Hall.
After a hard frost a man might wake in the morning and find he was breaking a covenant.
You silly old fool, you don't even know the alphabet of your own silly old business.
If a man go into the London Docks sober without means of getting drunk, and comes out of one of the cellars very drunk wherein are a million gallons of wine, I think that would be reasonable evidence that he had stolen some of the wine in that cellar, though you could not prove that any wine was stolen, or any wine was missed.
In the eye of the law no doubt, man and wife are for many purposes one: but that is a strong figurative expression, and cannot be so dealt with as that all the consequences must follow which would result from its being literally true.
There is no presumption in this country that every person knows the law: it would be contrary to common sense and reason if it were so.
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