BLACKSTONE ECONOMIZED: BEING A COMPENDIUM OF THE LAWS OF ENGLAND TO THE PRESENT TIME. IN FOUR BOOKS, EACH BOOK EMBRACING THE LEGAL PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICAL INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THE RESPECTIVE VOLUMES OF BLACKSTONE, SUPPLEMENTED BY SUBSEQUENT STATUTORY ENACTMENTS, BY DAVID MITCHELL AIRD, ESQ., OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW. "IN THE SCIENCE OF LAW EVERYTHING DEPENDS UPON 'LEADING PRINCIPLES,' LONGMANS, LONDON: GREEN, AND 1873. C O. ΤΟ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ROUNDELL, BARON SELBORNE, LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF GREAT BRITAIN, THE FOLLOWING WORK IS, WITH HIS LORDSHIP'S KIND PERMISSION, RESPECTFULLY AND GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED, Br THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. MANY years have passed since I began this work. I was then a diligent attendant at the public and private lectures of the respective Readers of the Inns of Court, from which I and others profited much; and I strongly advise students to disregard the invidious remarks that may still be made upon those lectures, for not a few young men who then listened and laboured with delight under those talented lecturers have attained distinguished positions in their profession; and, what is more, if stimulated by DUTY, brighter prospects are before them. Oral tuition not only amplifies the mind, but it attunes the ear, and guides the tongue to fluency of speech. Slight not these public or private lectures of the Readers of the Inns of Court. The advantage is of apparently slow growth; but it grows. As I said, many years have passed since I first entertained the idea of burdening the mind of the legal student by adding another work upon Blackstone, to whose Commentaries so many talented jurists have since his time done ample justice; nor would I have transgressed in the present instance, had I not been fully convinced that a voluminous work should not at first be given to the student-that the immature understanding ought not to be loaded at the outset with a mass of technical details which involves much labour and delay; and, indeed, often causes him to desert his studies. My object is to place before the student the "PRINCIPLES OF THE LAWS OF ENGLAND," adapted to the present state of the law, in the simplest form, excluding all extraneous |