The question was next submitted to three of the best-known and most-respected authorities in this country—all champion deciders—whom we will call P. Q. R. P. replied, “Unless clubs are trumps I do not think Y. has revoked. He has not played again. He has exposed a card. If clubs were trumps I think he has played again (am not sure). The case is not sufficiently stated for a positive opinion.”
Q. and R. did not regard it as insufficiently stated in any way, and they had no hesitation in saying that Y had not revoked.
When by the next mail it turned out that hearts were trumps, when, consequently, the revoke was a shade more doubtful than before, while P made no further sign, Q and R came to the unanimous conclusion that Y had revoked. The authority at the Antipodes who ruled originally that there was no revoke, remains in the same mind up to the present time.
Is this “vacillating and inconsistent,” or is it not?
Here in a not very complicated difficulty—if only there was any agreement on first principles, we have
(a) A benighted outsider thinking a revoke is established, because a well-known decision overrides the law;
(b) An intelligent colonist thinking it is not established, because he considers the law to override the decision.
(c) Authority No. 1 giving a somewhat uncertain sound, but on the whole inclining to the belief that it is either a revoke or it is not; evidently a man of judicial mind.
(d) Authorities 2 and 3, while never in doubt for a moment, first affirming a thing to be white, and afterwards, when it has been bleached and is to some extent whiter than before, with unabated confidence affirming it to be black; and there an important question, involving the highest penalty known to the law, rests.