I yield to authority. I think the practice of the Court of Chancery for more than one hundred years, and the authority of Judges of very great eminen… - Hardinge Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury

We should treat with great respect the opinion of eminent American lawyers on points which arise before us, but the practice, which seems to be increasing, of quoting American decisions as authorities, in the same way as if they were decisions of our own Courts, is wrong. Among other things it involves an inquiry, which often is not an easy one, whether the law of America on the subject in which the point arises is the same as our own.

I should regard it as certainly a novelty in our jurisprudence if the regular order of a learned Judge could be affected, or qualified, or altered in the slightest degree by what some subordinate officer of the Court thought proper to say in writing about it, even though in so doing he committed this additional irregularity—that to that private correspondence he affixed the seal of the Court.

I should regret to place a narrowing construction upon rules intended to remove expense and delay.