PUBLISHED BY BANKS, GOULD & CO.,
LAW BOOKSELLERS, NO. 144 NASSAU STREET;

AND BY GOULD, BANKS & GOULD,
NO. 104 STATE STREET, ALBANY.

1847.

Entered according to the Act of Congress in the year eighteen hundred and forty-seven

BY BANKS, GOULD & CO.

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.

Kec. Feb. 27, 188

ALEXANDER S. GOULD, PRINTER,

No. 144 Nassau Street, New York.

PREFACE.

THE Constitution adopted by the people of this state in Novem. ber last, abolishes the court of chancery after the first Monday of July next, (with some temporary exceptions,) and the new supreme court is thenceforth vested with general jurisdiction in law and equity.

It is supposed by some, that this change in our judicial system, renders the publication of Chancery Reports unnecessary if not useless. The error of this opinion may be readily demonstrated.

The Constitution does not interfere in the slightest degree, with the great principles of equity jurisprudence; nor was any such interference avowed by those most zealous for a change in the organization of the courts. Indeed, it is morally certain, that the tendency of the reform in the modes of civil procedure directed by the Constitution, and still more the effect of the Code which it proposes; will be to assimilate the common law actions and remedies to the forms now used in the court of chancery, and ultimately to give to the principles, as well as the forms of equity as heretofore administered, a greater preponderance than they have ever yet had in the jurisprudence of this state. The technical rules of practice, will doubtless be modified and improved; but as few of the cases now reported, relate to those rules, the change will not impair the value of our equity reports.

It may therefore be safely asserted, that well considered decisions of cases in equity, presenting new points, or new applications of important principles, will still be valuable contributions to judicial science. Whether this volume deserves to be thus classed, must be determined by the judgment of the enlightened bar to which it is submitted.

New York, February 1, 1847.

L. H. S.