MESSRS. DOE AND ROE

Evening Post, Volume CCXV, Issue 13, 17 January 1938, Page 16

MESSRS. DOE AND ROE

Seventy-five years ago there passed two persons who, though never beheld by any mortal eye, had yet long enjoyed, like Mrs. Gamp's friend Mrs. Harris, a most extensive reputation by report, says the "Manchester Guardian." For centuries every lawyer and almost every litigant was familiar with John Doe and Richard Roe, for their names appeared on every process of ejectment in place of those of the real parties to the suit. This remarkable legal fiction is said to have been derived from a provision oL Magna Carta requiring the production of witnesses before every criminal trial. Real witnesses were not always to hand, so the long-lived and insatiably litigious John and Richard were invented to take their places. They were only eliminated by an Act that came into force in October, 1852, ordering that all writs must bear the names of the persons actually concerned.