The Penal Code of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic: ‘Article 10. Persons who commit socially dangerous acts shall be liable to the application of measures of social defence of a judicial-correctional character only—

(a) if they acted deliberately, i.e., if they foresaw the socially dangerous consequences of their acts, or desired those consequences, or knowingly permitted them to happen, or

(b) if they acted carelessly, i.e., if they did not foresee the consequences of their acts although they ought to have foreseen them, or if they light-mindedly hoped to avert auch consequences.’

We have seen that a tenant of land, who had a warrautor, had the right to ‘vouch’ that warrantor if some adverse claimant sued him for the land. Thereupon the warrantor was obliged to defend the action for him and, should the adverse claimant prevail, to compensate him with other land (escambium). Vouching to warranty, however, was not the only procedural device that enabled a third party to intervene and defend an action for land in the thirteenth century. Not infrequently, for example, a defendant would say in Court that, for some reason or another, he ‘cannot answer without A,’ and that he accordingly ‘prays aid’ of A in the action.

It is not always appreciated that before a case is ready for trial, a vast amount of preliminary work has to be carried out. The playgoer who sits before the footlights, sees the actors, and hears them say their parts. He is but dimly conscious of all that has gone before—the playwright toiling at his manuscript, the rehearsals, and the labours of the dresser and the stage carpenter. So a visitor to the Law Courts who sees a judge on the bench provided with all the documents relating to the action, who watches counsel untie the red tape on his brief, and the solicitor produce documents from a dispatch case, is not always alive to the fact that all this has involved a deal of preparation, not only in the office of the solicitor and the chambers of learned counsel, but in the offices of the Supreme Court.