PREFACE. THIS book is intended especially for law students; and its characteristic features have been determined largely by the writer's experience in the lecture-room. As a rule, questions are discussed with a fulness proportioned to the trouble which they have given to the student, or to his aptness to misapprehend the principles which they involve. On the other hand, a few topics which are found in most treatises on sales have been omitted, upon the assumption that the student has already mastered them. A discussion of such subjects as consideration, mutual assent, the capacity of parties, illegality and fraud, belongs to the study of pure contracts and of torts, and its repetition ought to be unnecessary during the investigation of a branch of applied contracts. The provisions of the Statute of Frauds, bearing upon the sale of goods, have been treated in connection with the common-law topics to which respectively they relate. It is believed that this method has resulted in an economy of space in the book, and will conduce to a like economy of time and perplexity on the part of the student. In the Appendix will be found the present British Factors Act, following the statutory provisions of France and Germany towards which British legislation has been tending. The American statutes which are reprinted, when considered in connection. with the sketch of their history and of their strict construction by the courts, undisturbed by the legislature as that construction has remained, show that the mercantile community has not been as sensitive in this country as in Great Britain, to the pinch of the common-law rules on this subject. A volume of cases, selected and arranged to accompany this book, is nearly ready for the press. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, June, 1897. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE § 1. SALE AND CONTRACT TO SELL 1. Executed and Executory Contracts 2. Their Respective Characteristics § 2. THE PROPERTY IN CHATTELS MAY PASS WITHOUT 1. Title relates back to Time of Conversion |