In court decisions the finding or findings generally appear in a separate paragraph or paragraphs, following a review of the case. The punctuation here is not entirely uniform; but, although it seems inconsistent with that of No. 39, it is easily explained:
42. Held, that the evidence is material.
If the decision covers two or more points, it may take this form:
42-1. Held—
1. That the evidence is material.
2. That the lower court did not err in its instructions to the jury.
If there is a reason for the use of a comma after “held” in No. 42, the same reason seems to require a comma after “held” in No. 42-1, the dash being used for another purpose, to be considered later. A comma is not used in No. 42-1, because its omission is the conventional usage.
The punctuation of No. 42 probably follows the mode of reading the sentence, a decided pause being made after “held,” which would not be the case in reading No. 39.
It could not be said that a colon after “this” in No. 41 would not be good punctuation.
As we have said elsewhere, Mr. Wilson’s work is very masterful and exhaustive, even though exceedingly puzzling; and therefore we feel justified in drawing frequent lessons from it. We take from it our next two illustrative sentences, which are so much alike that we wonder how there can be a difference in their punctuation after the verb followed by “that”:
43. The writer just quoted says, that “the grammatical pauses, which are addressed to the eye of the reader, are insufficient for the speaker, who addresses himself to the understanding ‘through the porches of the ear.’”
44. Mr. Maglathlin says that “the comma occurs sometimes where there should be no pause in reading or speaking; nor can the length of any required stop be inferred with much certainty from the common stop-mark used.”
We fail to find a rule in Mr. Wilson’s work explaining the use of the comma before “that” in No. 43. The sentences, however, are taken, not from Mr. Wilson’s illustrative examples, but from the text of his work; and therefore the punctuation is more likely a typographical error.