A NEW LAW DICTIONARY AND Enstitute of the Whole Law. FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS, THE LEGAL PROFESSION, BY ARCHIBALD BROWN, OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW, M.A. EDIN. AND OXON., AUTHOR OF THE RULE OF THE LAW OF FIXTURES,' AND AN EPITOME AND "Nosse quæ nunc aguntur in curiis, necque præterita ignorare." LONDON: STEVENS & HAYNES, BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR. 1874. PREFACE. Ir appeared to the Author that a new Dictionary of the Law would be useful, if it succeeded in presenting a complete Institute of the whole Law of England, expressing briefly, but without inaccuracy or meagreness, the rules and principles of the Common Law, of Chancery Law, of Real Property or Conveyancing Law, of Mercantile Law, of Constitutional Law, and of Public or General, i.e., International, Law, arranging these rules and principles, whether of doctrine, evidence, or procedure, in lexicographical order, and while giving prominence to what is modern, not ignoring what is ancient in the law, wherever the ancient principles or phrases were either valuable in themselves or serviceable in explaining the modern principles or phrases which are in numerous instances their equivalents. This scheme involving the observance of a double method, has not been very easy to carry through, but unsparing endeavours have been used towards accomplishing it. In the first place, it was manifest that if the dimensions of the Dictionary were to be convenient (and they were strictly limited to such convenience as was compatible with usefulness), much that was old and totally disused would have to be excluded altogether, and much more that was also old but not totally disused would have to be most succinctly expressed; and in the second place, it was manifest that the vast details of the modern law would have to be compressed to the maximum degree in order to admit of being comprised within the limits of the Dictionary. Then, in the third place, the iteration of matter, which was in danger of creeping in through the combination of Institute and Dictionary, had to be watchfully excluded, and this want of iteration compensated by proper references, neither too numerous to be puzzling, nor too scanty to be imperfect. Lastly, all that part of the modern law which could point to an historical origin deserved to keep the merit of its lineage or pedigree, and some pains have been taken to be just in this respect. A table of contents to a Dictionary (which one might suppose is all contents) is probably a phenomenon; but |