The dogmatic affirmation de minimis non curat lex is only
true on the narrowest interpretation. The law courts, at any rate, are always bothering about the most inconsiderable trifles imaginable—though no doubt when a case involves a principle, as it generally does, the trifle has to be multiplied ten or a hundred thousandfold. On Monday three Lords Justices in the Court of Appeal decided that the County Court Judge at Hull was right in declaring Hull Corporation wrong in levying on a local doctor a charge of gs. a year for water used (over and above the ordinary domestic con- sumption) for washing his bands in his surgery and mixing with drugs in his medicine-bottles. And the question seems likely to be taken to the House of Lords. There are nearly fifty thousand doctors in Great Britain, and 9s. multiplied by 50,000 comes to a good deal. But no individual supplier of water, except perhaps the Metropolitan Water Board, would be substantially richer if the Lords did decide that a doctor must pay extra if he washes in his dispensary (but not if he washes in his bathroom).
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