ΑΝ ELEMENTARY DIGEST OF THE LAW OF PROPERTY IN LAND BY STEPHEN MARTIN LEAKE BARRISTER-AT-LAW LONDON STEVENS AND SONS 119 CHANCERY LANE 1874 PREFACE. THE Complaint is found in the earliest writers on our law, that the laws and customs of the realm are not put into writing, that they may be known by all who have to administer or to obey them (a). This complaint has been continually repeated, under an ever increasing pressure of the inconvenience, but with very little attempt at a remedy (b), up to the present time; when, at last, it has called forth some more decided efforts for relief. These efforts have already produced some useful results, chiefly in rendering the Statute law more compendious and accessible; but in the direction of their immediate object of reducing to writing that body of law which rests upon custom and precedent, they appear to have been arrested by the preliminary question whether the written exposition of law should take the form of a Code or a Digest; and much discussion has ensued upon the essential distinctions and comparative advantages of these two forms of a corpus juris, but without any conclusion as yet upon the future course of proceeding. If, as seems generally agreed, the main distinction between (a) See Horne's Mirror of Justices, Chap. V. sect. 1, 3, where this is reckoned as one of the "abusions" of the common law. (b) See Bacon's "Offer of a Digest of the Laws of England," Law Tracts, p. 15. |