Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau^ pp

5. Blackstone I Comm. 62-4. : >Vith us at présent the monuments and évidences of our légal customs are contained in the records of the sevcral courts of justice, in books of reports and judicial décisions, and in the trcatises of learned sages of the profession, preserved and handed down to us from the times of highest antiquity. Uowever I therefore style thèse parts of our law leges non scriplce^ because their original institution and authority are not set down in writing, as acts of parliamcnt are, but they receive their binding power, and the force of laws, by long and immémorial usage, and by their uni versai réception thougiiout thekingdom. — 1 Comm. 67 :... in our law the goodness of a custom dépends

322 NOTES. (Pp. 135-137)

upon its having been used time out of mind ; or, in thc soleonity of our légal phrase, time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.