Excerpt from An Account of the Present Deplorable State of the Ecclesiastical Courts of Record: With Proposals for Their Complete ReformationIt is a national characteristic of the English people to love what is old. Prescription is entrenched in our common law, but finds a stronger hold in the natural disposition of society. The word "venerable" is one of the most effective adjectives in a speech spoken to an English audience, and when anything really respectable is linked, however artificially, with an ancient institution, its chances of popularity and permanence stand very high. It is much to be regretted that this disposition of the people has been largely abused, and that inveterate abuses have grown up into enormous wrongs, altogether intolerable.There is one class of these standing in the midst of our institutions, like an old ruin in a country place, and owing immunity from interference to superstitious awe. None but the most hardy venture to approach lest the mass should fall upon the rash intruder. After this, need we name the Ecclesiastical Courts, having a jurisdiction "extending to all persons and things belonging to the Roman Church, to the guardianship of orphans, the wills of defuncts, and matters of marriage and divorce."About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.