V. & R. STEVENS AND G. S. NORTON, (Successors to the late J. & W. T. CLARKE, of Portugal Street,) MDCCCLI. ΤΟ THE HON. SIR THOMAS NOON TALFOURD, KNT., ONE OF HER MAJESTY'S JUSTICES OF THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, ETC. ETC. ETC. THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED, WITH THE GREATEST RESPECT FOR THOSE AMIABLE QUALIFICATIONS, THOSE VARIED LEGAL AND LITERARY ATTAINMENTS, AND FOR THAT GRACEFUL ELOQUENCE WHICH SO EMINENTLY DISTINGUISHED HIM AS AN ADVOCATE, AND ULTIMATELY RAISED HIM TO THE BENCH, BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. IN presenting this treatise to the notice of the profession, the author ventures to hope that he has, in some measure, supplied a book of practice which was required. It is indeed somewhat extraordinary, that, whilst there are many authors on almost every known branch of the law, until very recently, there was no treatise on the writ of scire facias. A very cursory glance at the present volume will show this writ to be required in a great variety of instances, the practice in each being distinct, and in many of them depending on different rules; the decisions which govern the practice being scattered through the books. in an immense number of reports. Had the author believed that a treatise on this subject, recently published,* was adequate to the wants of the profession, although he had then progressed far through the labour of the present volume, and its preparation for the press had been announced, he would at once have ceased its compilation. But conceiving that an attempt to render that work (written originally with reference to the practice on the writ of scire facias in Ireland, founded in many instances on Irish statutes,) applicable to the practice in England, by bracketting within Irish statutes the different enactments made by English statutes, rather deteriorated from its utility as applicable to Ireland, than met the requirements of the profession in England, the author saw no reason to induce him to refrain from completing his task. Kelly on Scire Facias. |