ADAPTED TO USE IN ALL THE STATES AND TERRITORIES BY JOHN NORTON POMEROY, LL. D., 66 99 66 AUTHOR OF BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1876. に །? Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by JOHN NORTON POMEROY, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. BD TIBBVKA Cambriage: Press of John Wilson and Son. ΤΟ AARON J. VANDERPOEL, Esq., OF THE NEW YORK BAR, THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED ALIKE AS A TRIBUTE TO HIS HIGH PROFESSIONAL CHARACTER, AND AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE AUTHOR'S PERSONAL REGARD. PREFACE. THE new procedure which was devised by the codifiers and inaugurated by the Legislature of New York, in the year 1848, now prevails in more than twenty other States and Territories of this country, and may, therefore, be properly termed "The Reformed American System of Procedure." After a most careful consideration, and the most cautious and deliberate examination by a commission composed of the ablest judges and barristers, it has finally been accepted in its essential features and elements by the British Parliament, and has recently displaced the time-honored methods of the common-law and the equity courts in England. This fact alone may be regarded as decisive of its intrinsic excellence, as conclusively demonstrating that it is founded upon natural and true principles; that it embodies rational notions in respect to the manner of conducting judicial controversies between private litigants; and that, in its conception and design, it is far superior to the artificial, technical, and arbitrary modes which had so long been looked upon as perfect by generations of English and American lawyers. It is shown in the Introductory Chapter of the present work that this whole course of reform is but a repetition, not simply in a general outline, but even in the minute details, of what took place in the jurisprudence of Rome; so that the modern legislation has, in this respect, merely followed an inevitable law of progress, which always works out the same results under the same social conditions and circumstances. Although the codes which have been enacted in the various States and Territories sometimes differ slightly from each other in respect to the minor measures and steps of practice, and although some of them, in reference to certain special matters, have |