text:  What was to be held the effect of it? Or had it _any_ effect? The traversers' counsel at the bar of the House of Lords took by surprise every one whom they addressed--all their opponents all the judges all the law lords and all the legal profession as soon as they had heard of it--by boldly affirming that if this blot really existed it would invalidate and utterly nullify the whole proceedings from the beginning to the end! They hammered away at this point accordingly hour after hour--day after day--with desperate pertinacity; being compelled from time to time during their hopeful argument to admit that up to that moment the rule or custom which they were seeking to impeach had been universally acted upon from time immemorial to the contrary of that for which they were contending