almost impossible to make it understandable. A partial list of
authorities on the subject sounds like a chapter from _Alice in
Wonderland_: Pepper on Pleading; Perry on Pleading; Pollock on
Pleading; Pound on Pleading; Puterbaugh on Pleading; Phillips on
Pleading; Pomeroy on Pleading. The number of court decisions in which
this branch of the proceeding has been reverently and gravely dealt
with reads like a metaphysical discussion in the dark ages. The names
formerly used were superb. Complaint, demurrer, confession and
avoidance, traverse, replication, dilatory pleas, peremptory pleas,
rejoinder, rebutter, and sur-rebutter.

On the other hand the clear, concise technical statement of a case is
not a matter to be laughed at; no clear thinking is possible without
it. No plain understanding of what the drama is about, nor what the
issues of the battle are, can be grasped. Good lawyers are good
thinkers and usually plain talkers. The present-day revolt against the
confused pleadings may go to the opposite extreme and abolish them
all, leaving the case to be presented as formless and loose. The vexed
question of the proper form of a pleading may delay justice until it
is determined on appeal from the City Court to the Supreme Court, then
to the Appellate Division, then to the Court of Appeals. In the
meanwhile the clients may die, the money in suit may be lost, while
the audience is waiting merely for the programs to be printed.

In Perry on _Common Law Pleading_, reprinted in 1897, chapter thirteen
is devoted to rules which tend to prevent obscurity and confusion in
pleading.

RULE I. Pleadings must not be insensible or repugnant.
RULE II. Pleadings must not be ambiguous or doubtful.