So little was the collection considered as a literary work with a definite text that every one assumed a right to abridge or enlarge, to insert ideas of his own, or fresh scriptural quotations; nor were the scribes and translators by any means scrupulous about the names of natural objects, and even the passages from Holy Writ.
The evils attendant on this system were found to be so great that the Pluralities Act 1838 was passed to abridge the holding of benefices in plurality, and it was enacted that no person should hold under any circumstances more than two benefices, and this privilege was made subject to the restriction that his benefices were within ten statute miles of each other.
Alcuin (q.v.) does nothing more in his Dialectic than abridge Boetius and the other commentators.
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And xv.) make any treaty or alliance; coin money or make anything, save gold and silver coin, a legal tender; pass any bill of attainder or ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts; have any but a republican form of government; grant any title of nobility; maintain slavery; abridge the privileges of any citizen of the United States, or deny to him the right of voting on account of race, colour or previous condition of servitude; deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law; deny to any person the equal protection of the laws.