It  results  from  the  judicial  function  of  ex])ounding  the  law  as
it  is  that  the  courts  cannot  extend  it  to  meet  a  case  which  has
clearly  and  undoubtedly^  been  omitted  to  be  provided  for.^  As
the  judicial  committee  said  in  Crawford  v.  Spooner,'  "we  can-
not aid  the  legislature's  defective  phrasing  of  an  act  ;•  we  can-
not add  and  mend,  and,  by  construction,  make  up  deficiencies
which  are  left  there ; "  in  other  words,  the  language  of  stat-
utes, but  more  especially  of  modern  acts,*  must  neither  be  ex-
tended beyond  its  natural  and  proper  meaning,  in  order  to
supply  defects,  nor  strained  to  meet  the  justice  of  an  individual
•case.^  If  the  language  is  plain,  precise  and  unambiguous,  there
is  no  room  for  construction ;  and  the  particular  intention  so
expressed  is  alone  to  be  carried  into  effect.  A  statute  of  Con-
necticut which  validated  defeds  executed  and  acknowledged  in
any  other  state  "  in  conformity  with  the  laws  of  such  state  "
was  held  not  to  apply  to  a  deed  of  land  situated  in  that  state,
executed  in  ]^ew  York  and  acknowledged  before  a  Connecti-
cut commissioner,  defective  by  the  laws  of  Connecticut,  if
executed  there,  for  having  but  one  witness.*  In  order  to  ex-
tend a  statute  by  equitable  construction  beyond  its  letter,  it
must  be  collected  from  the  act  that  the  wrong:  soufiht  to
be  redressed  was  one  of  the  considerations  for  passing  it ;
otherwise  it  is  a  casus  omissus  which  a  court  of  law  cannot
supply.  Where  an  act  denies  to  one  class  of  suitors  a  remedy
or  defense  which  others  enjoy,  it  wiU  not  be  extended  by  equi-
table construction  to  cases  not  specified  in  it,  unless  the  court

1  PhilUps  V.  PliilUps,  L.  R.  1  p.  &        ^  Hardc.  on  St  20,  21 ;  Lord  Den-
D.  173.  man  in  Green  v.  Wood,  7  Q.  B.  at

2  Hardc.  on  St.  20.  p.  185 ;  'Wliiteley  v.  Chappell,  L.  R.  4

3  6  Moore's  P.  C.  9.  Q.  B.  147,

••  Lord   Brougham   in   Gwynne  v.        ^  Fai-rell  Foundry  v.  Dart,  26  Conn.
