A TREATISE ON PLEADING, AND PARTIES TO ACTIONS, WITH SECOND AND THIRD VOLUMES, CONTAINING PRECEDENTS OF PLEADINGS, AND AN APPENDIX OF FORMS ADAPTED TO THE RECENT PLEADING AND OTHER RULES, WITH Practical Notes. Nihil simul inventum est et perfectum.-Co. Lit. 230 a. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. BY JOSEPH CHITTY, Esq. OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER AT LAW. Eleventh American Edition, FROM THE SIXTH LONDON EDITION, CORRECTED AND ENLARGED. By H. GREENING, Esq., OF LINCOLN'S INN. WITH NOTES AND ADDITIONS, BY JOHN A. DUNLAP AND E. D. INGRAHAM, Esqrs. SPRINGFIELD MASS. PUBLISHED BY G. AND C. MERRIAM. 1851. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by G. & C. MERRIAM, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. GREENFIELD, MASS. 326579 ADVERTISEMENT TO THE NINTH AMERICAN EDITION. HENRY GREENING, Esq., the editor of the Seventh and last English edition of Chitty's Pleading, in his Preface to the work states, in reference to the changes which have been made by him, that "the alterations in the text of the first volume will be found to consist principally in striking out those portions, which were more historical than useful in practice; such as the account of the ancient numerous and perplexing modes of commencing personal actions; the parts relating to bailable process, and the old forms of commencing Declarations; as well as the account of the defences admissible under the general issue before the Pleading Rules of Hil. T. 4 Will. 4, contained in the seventh chapter of the last edition in the place of which, he says, "I have endeavored to give the present law of practice, using of course as much of the old material as I found applicable to the subject." : It is presumed, that the system of Pleading Rules, above referred to, has not been adopted, very extensively at least, in the United States, and consequently no such sudden changes would be expedient or admissible in a work on the subject of pleading here. Those parts which have been very properly struck from the work by Mr. Greening, for the benefit of the English Practitioner, are scarcely less useful to be retained for the purposes of the law as at present existing in this country, than they were at the time they were originally inserted. It has consequently not been thought advisable, in the preparation of the present American edition, to leave out those por iv ADVERTISEMENT TO NINTH AMERICAN EDITION. tions of the work, which have been omitted by Mr. Greening in his edition. Mr. Greening has, however, made some additions to the text of the work as left by Mr. Chitty. These additions occur mainly in the seventh chapter. They have been carefully selected, and are all inserted in the Notes to that chapter in the present American edition. The student and practitioner will therefore find, that while they have not lost any portion of Mr. Chitty's invaluable labors, which might be of service in this country, they have gained, and will have in this edition, all the additions and improvements, which Mr. Greening has thought it necessary or proper to make to the text of the first volume of his edition. As to the Forms in the second and third volumes, those of Mr. Chitty's former editions have been preserved and retained, for the same reasons given by Mr. Ingraham in his Preface to the Eighth American edition of this work. This Ninth American edition will be found to contain large and important additions to the American Notes, and a great number of citations have been added to former Notes, and many entirely new Notes have been inserted. It is hoped, that the inquiries of the student will in some measure be satisfied, and the labors of the practitioner lightened, thereby. SALEM, April 22, 1844. J. C. P. |