OF 335 ELEMENTARY LAW: EMBODYING THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES, RULES, AND DEFINITIONS OF LAW, EMBRACING THE SUBJECTS CONTAINED IN A REGULAR LAW COURSE, COLLECTED AND ARRANGED SO AS TO BE MORE EASILY ACQUIRED BY STUDENTS, COMPREHENDED BY M. E. DUNLAP, COUNSELLOR AT LAW. THIRD EDITION. ST. LOUIS: SOULE, THOMAS & WENTWORTH, Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by M. E. DUNLAP, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. ST. LOUIS, MO. PREFACE. 1942 When Mr. Wilberforce asked the advice of Lord Eldon as to the course to be pursued by the young Grants in their legal studies, the advice was, to live the life of a hermit and work like a horse." That has been, and no doubt still is, sound advice in England to make a great lawyer; and in some measure it is, and perhaps will be more so, in the United States. But we are a different race of people, or, rather, a like race under different circumstances. The labor of the profession is not divided here as it is in England, and probably never will be; the consequence is, that to make a great lawyer one may have much less learned lore, and must have much more knowledge of men and things in general. There is no spot on the earth where the legal profession calls for such varied and extensive acquirements as it does in this country. A lawyer here, to be eminent, ought to know everything which can be known, for there is no kind of knowledge that he may not be required to bring into use. With these facts in view, this volume has been prepared to aid the student in the thorough mastery of his course of legal studies, and, to some extent, obviate the loss of time during his final preparation for admission to the bar; also, to give him some practical hints touching the best methods of acquiring a knowledge of the law and its practice. Many of the Suggestions to Students herein presented are taken, like the Abridgment itself, from some of the leading English and American writers in the arena of legal science; they were found to be so elegantly and learnedly written that the author felt there was no room left for even slight improvement; besides this, age has given to them, as to precedents in the law, a veneration and potency unattending later efforts in the same direction. The chief design of this work is to give in the fewest pages the principles and definitions of law and equity, to furnish a review or note book and vade mecum for LAW STUDENTS and young practitioners. It is said that "the substance of any science consists of certain elementary rules or first principles, which, as they are generally the pure dictates of reason, and short and simple in their phraseology, find an easy access to the mind. These rules are necessarily numerous, and, with their exceptions, constitute the entire learning of any science." Principles, owing to the universality of their expression, their reason and application, glide almost imperceptibly into the mind, and, once seated in the memory, seldom or never abandon it. That which is forcibly impressed on the understanding, because fully comprehended, is not liable to forsake us; hence those rules which have been repeatedly tested by reason, and successfully applied to an infinite variety of cases, and finally adopted as principles, have a particular congeniality with the mind, and are welcomed to the memory as the offspring of philosophy. This compendium, presenting in a condensed form, pruned of all redundancies, the leading and important principles, rules, and definitions of law and equity, as laid down in the standard elementary works, will be found far more accurate and systematic than notes hastily taken by the student while reading the course, to say nothing of the immense saving of time and the advantage of print over writing. It contains the pith of all the important branches of the law student's course, accurately collected from Blackstone's Commentaries, and leading authors on Evidence, Contracts, Pleadings, and Equity. No index is furnished, because the work is, to some extent, an index itself; besides, it is the desire of the author that the student shall not consider it as a book to be "tasted" merely, but to be thoroughly chewed and digested; " he can scarcely skim it over if he would, for it is the cream of the law, gathered from the purest and highest sources known to legal science, and the diligent student will find it richer to his professional taste as he partakes of it from day to day. The author wishes here to repeat his closing remarks in the preface to the first edition-that this work is not intended as a substitute for text-books, but simply to lighten the labors and shorten the work of the student when he shall have carefully read the WHOLE COURSE and commenced his review, preparatory to final examination for the bar. MAY, 1877. M. E. D. |