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SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK, BART., D.C.L., LL.D.,

LATE CORPUS PROFESSOR OF JURISPRUDENCE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

ASSISTED BY

O. A. SAUNDERS AND ARTHUR B. CANE,

BOTH OF THE INNER TEMPLE,

BARRISTERS-AT-LAW.

VOL. LXIII.

1843-1844.

6 BEAVAN; 5 MANNING & GRANGER; 5, 6 SCOTT, N. R.;
11 MEESON & WELSBY; 1 DOWLING, N. S.; 13 LAW
JOURNAL.

LONDON:

SWEET AND MAXWELL, LIMITED, 3, CHANCERY LANE.

BOSTON:

LITTLE, BROWN & CO.

1903.

BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS

LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.

OF

SW YO

PREFACE TO VOLUME LXIII.

Fishmongers' Co. v. Robertson, p. 242, is a case of some importance in the modern history of corporate powers and liabilities. Warwick v. Rogers, p. 292, is a decision on an interesting point of commercial usage and common sense, raised in a form which, we fear, is barely intelligible to modern students.

Raphael v. Pickford, again, at p. 395, is a curious illustration of the manner in which the New Rules of 1834 operated to make it not less but more difficult for pleaders to arrive at an issue relevant and appropriate to the substance of the case. The point of substance decided is that a common carrier is bound to deliver goods intrusted to him within a reasonable time, and failure to do so is equivalent to failing to deliver at all. But the result is arrived at by a road which seems, at the present day, almost incredibly tortuous.

Smith v. Marrable, p. 493, is a well-known case showing (among other things) that Parke, B. was quite capable of deciding on grounds of common sense when no point of pleading was in the way. He would probably not have approved the defence said to have been raised by a modern Roman citizen who had warranted his lodger's room free from insects: Ma non son insetti questi; son cimici ! At p. 484 will be found one of Serjeant Manning's learned and helpful notes on the Year Books.

The original statement by Rolfe, B., afterwards Lord Cranworth, that gross negligence is only the same thing as negligence "with the addition of a vituperative epithet" occurs in Wilson v. Brett, at p. 530. Later decisions and dicta have, on the whole, confirmed it.

M'Gregor v. Gregory, p. 599, is in itself a decision on

obsolete rules of pleading, but is still good authority to show what is and what is not a material part of the cause of action for libel. In this kind of action it is still useful if not necessary to know what amount of particularity was required of pleaders under the old system.

Taylor v. Ashton, p. 635, stands approved on the point of principle that an action for deceit will not lie for a statement made with belief at the time that it was true, though wholly without reasonable ground for the belief. But on similar facts the decision would hardly be the same nowadays. Juries expect more intelligence of directors, or confide less in their innocence.

The learned reader will observe, as notes of the Victorian age, the large number of suits for the enforcement of charitable trusts, and the first appearance of a batch of registration cases on appeal from the decisions of revising barristers.

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