A PRACTICAL AND ELEMENTARY ABRIDGMENT OF THE CASES ARGUED AND DETERMINED IN THE COURTS OF KING'S BENCH, COMMON PLEAS, EXCHEQUER, AND AT NISI PRIUS; AND OF THE RULES OF COURT, FROM THE RESTORATION IN 1660, TO MICHAELMAS TERM, 4 GEORGE IV. ALPHABETICALLY, CHRONOLOGICALLY, AND SYSTEMATICALLY WITH COPIOUS NOTES AND REFERENCES TO' THE YEAR BOOKS, ANALOGOUS ADJUDICATIONS, TEXT WRITERS AND STATUTES, SPECIFYING WHAT DECISIONS HAVE BEEN AFFIRMED, RECOGNIZED, QUALIFIED, OR OVER-RULED. COMPRISING, UNDER THE SEVERAL TITLES, A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF THE BY CHARLES PETERSDORFF, ESQ. OF THE INNER TEMPLE. VOLUME I. New-York: PUBLISHED BY TREADWAY & BOgert, AND GOULD & BANKS. 1829. ADVERTISEMENT. A PRACTICAL and elementary abridgment of the Common Law Reports from the period they assumed a useful and inteligible form, has for a series of years been an increasing desideratum. Rules of Law are never universal. There are always some limits affixed to their specific application. An acquaintance with the first principles which constitute the basis of our system of jurisprudence, without a corresponding knowledge of the facts and circumstances which gave rise to their establishment and promulgation, has been, therefore, at all times considered rather a source of difficulty and embarrassment than of utility to the practitioner. A comprehensive knowledge of the important qualifications engrafted upon those primary rules, when applied to particular facts, can alone be attained by consulting either the diffusive reports of cases themselves in which the doctrines were originally propounded, or those in which they have been subsequently confirmed, or by having recourse to a practical and elementary abridgment, in which the material facts, and pleadings, and the judgments, are concisely yet accurately developed. To practitioners of learning and experience, who by their constant and regular attendance in the Courts are acquainted with every new modification or extension of the law produced by each succeeding decision, the Report Books are the most satisfactory and authentic medium of reference: but to the majority of the profession, whose opportunities of acquiring legal knowledge have been limited, and whose practice has been circumscribed, no mode of obtaining information can be more uncertain or delusive than the perusal of any particular decision unconnected with the prior or subsequent cases and analagous adjudications. It is under these impressions that the work now submitted to the public has been prepared; and from the increased business of our Tribunals, and the amplified and extended reports of their proceedings, it is presumed that the following pages will be found acceptable to every branch of the profession. A succinct statement of the mode in which the materials are collected and arranged, will perhaps more satisfactorily evince the expediency of the publication. In detailing the structure of the work it will be proper to consider, 1st. Its general arrangement and principal divisions. 2dly. The internal or subordinate arrangement of those divisions. 3dly. The manner of abstracting or abridging the judicial determinations. I. The general arrangement is alphabetical, practical utility being the primary object of the present work. Anxious attention has been directed to endeavour to insert every case under that division, which will conduce to the most prompt and ready reference, and most probably occur to the mind either of the most experienced or uninitiated member of the Profession. II. Although the principal divisions are alphabetical, their internal arrangement or subordinate parts are framed, and the materials consolidated analylically, according to the models of the most approved writers upon each particular subject. The cases in each subdivision of a title are inserted chronologically, with the view of more effectually showing and illustrating the gradual progress of our judicial polity. Where, however, a particular class of decisions consists of a variety of abstracts or abridgments, those most intimately connected are arranged in such a manner as to render their relative application more obvious. When the same point has been determined in a series of cases, the one VOL. I. B |