legislators still deem it desirable to use preambles in practically all except general laws.

If the tendency has been to simplify and shorten the most important enactments by the elimination of these authors' prefaces, there is no good reason why they should be employed at all. As arguments or apologies they serve some purpose while bills are running the gauntlet of readings and votings in the legislature and, later, are undergoing the scrutiny of the Governor; but after that they may be said to have outlived their usefulness inasmuch as the language and the purpose of any statute can be rendered sufficiently clear without them. One takes it for granted that when a bill is passed the legislators are actuated by the highest motives, that they feel a genuine necessity to act. If people thought otherwise, why should they not demand preambles for hundreds of the really important laws? The reasons which pad so many preambles, and thus "stuff up and disgrace" the statute-books, are clearly what one critic long ago described them to be: "those effusions of legislative babbling those old-womanish aphorisms, mocking the discernment of the people, degrading the dignity of the legislature '61

IV

CONTENT FEATURES OF IOWA STATUTES

In the foregoing pages certain formal features of legislative acts were described and discussed. They are to the contents of a law what the head is to the human body: no statute can have life without the sort of title and enacting clause defined by the State Constitution or without some kind of body endowed with power and capable of action. Coming now to the provisions embodied in statutes, it will be necessary to consider, not the ingredients or matters composing them, but the framework which visualizes them. By a process of dissection one may discover the skeletal features characteristic of ordinary Iowa statutes. (For a discussion of the content features of statutes see also Mr. Patton's paper on the Methods of Statute Lawmaking in Iowa in this volume, pp. 199-203.)

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SUBDIVISION OF STATUTES

The first thing that arrests the attention of the observer is the fact that the contents of an act of the legislature are grouped into one or more parts. Broken into sections, early laws appear upon the printed page after such abbreviations as, "SEC. 1", "SEC. 2", or simply "$2". Recent statutes are cut up into "SECTION 1", "SECTION 2", and so forth. By means of these designations different provisions of an act can be simply and clearly referred to by number: "without them, mistake and uncertainty may, to any amount, be produced."62 Each section serves as a topic for separate debate and dis

cussion in the legislature, and before that as a handy depository into which the author packs a well reasoned proposition.

Where the contents of an important piece of legislation cover a large field the statute is sometimes subjected to an additional system of subdivision: at several points general headings are inserted as reference aids or earmarks of the groups of sections which they cover. The first Iowa act for the organization, discipline, and government of the militia is divided into eight "titles", each being limited to a particular phase of local preparedness, each consisting of its own consecutively numbered sections, and some of them being subdivided into "articles" with sub-headings.63

Another good example of the logical arrangement of sections is the act defining crimes and fixing punishments -the first code of criminal law in Iowa:64 one hundred and nine sections are grouped under the names of various offences which, in turn, appear under ten headings such as the following:

FIRST DIVISION.

Offences against the persons of individuals.

MURDER.

The law which established the justice of the peace court shows an original method of subdivision:65 it consists of thirteen "articles", each with an italicised subheading, and sections independently numbered. The kind of frame-work illustrated by these lengthy acts is commendable because it renders the law more intelligible: it is preferable to the recent Workmen's Compensation Act the complexity of which is relieved only by the insertion of "Part II" and "Part III" without legends.

ENUMERATION OF SECTION PARAGRAPHS

The visualization of statutes is further enhanced by the convenient subdivision of sections into consecutively numbered paragraphs or clauses. For example, the fifth section of the first interpretation statutes enacted by the legislature in Iowa consists of seventeen distinct rules to be followed in construing the acts of the legislature. Many laws employ this useful device, some numbering, and others lettering the subdivisions. Sometimes the subject-matter of a section is placed under italicised headings, as in the case of the Pure Foods Act of 1915: the first section tabulates in separate numerical order the various standards established for Flavoring Extracts, Vinegar, Butter, Oysters, and Ice Cream.68

Although it is customary to form paragraphs of the section subdivisions, one occasionally finds laws arranged like the following early enactment on divorce:

That divorces from the bonds of matrimony shall be adjudged and decreed for the following causes, to wit: 1. Impotency. 2. Adultery. And divorces a mensa et thoro shall be adjudged and decreed for the following causes, to wit: 3. Extreme cruelty. 4. Wilful desertion of either party for one year: Provided, however, That divorce from the bonds of matrimony may be decreed for these latter causes at the discretion of the court.

Furthermore, a section is now and then split up into paragraphs without designations69 of any kind so that the law does not appear so bulky. In all cases where sections are displayed in parts, whether numbered or unnumbered, a very useful purpose is served, namely, easy reference by future legislatures. For example, section two of a statute simply avoids repetition as follows:

The provisions of paragraphs three and four of section one

of this act, shall be applicable to the passage of any act that may be passed.

The statutes which are most pleasing to the eye are the ones composed of short sections or of long sections divided into short numbered clauses. Such devices, moreover, promote clearness and simplicity in the law on a subject usually regarded as technical. Thus, in the act to allow and regulate "the action of right", each of fifty-six sections averages three or four lines in length; but the forty-two page statute relating to wills, executors, administrators, and the settlement of estates contains many sections of single sentences of a half or a full page in length. The same thing can be said of the Australian Ballot Act. Such complex sentences seem to be purposely avoided in numerous other laws. To be sure, certain kinds of statutes lend themselves more easily to conciseness of expression than others. For instance, those which prescribed the powers of a corporation or the duties of an officer, or, indeed, the provisions of administrative laws in general naturally fell into the tabulated style of arrangement."1 The act establishing legal weights and measures would not look so formidable if many of its sections had been displayed in the same way as several sections of the Workmen's Compensation Act.72

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The reasons assigned for dividing a statute into short sections apply with just as much force to the breaking up of the section into its natural parts whenever possible:

1. The person preparing the statute will compel himself to detach and lay out clearly his ideas and finish up one thing at a time. 2. The sense of the statute will be more easily grasped if it is made easy to proceed step by step than if it is seemingly or actually made necessary to assimilate much matter at once. 3. Parts of the statute will be more easily referred to and designated