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SELECT CASES

AND

OTHER AUTHORITIES

ON THE

LAW OF PROPERTY.

AND

OTHER AUTHORITIES

ON THE

LAW OF PROPERTY.

BY

JOHN CHIPMAN GRAY,

ROYALL PROFESSOR OF LAW IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

VOLUME I.

CAMBRIDGE:

CHARLES W. SEVER AND COMPANY.

1888.

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PREFACE.

THIS Collection of Cases is prepared for the convenience of students in the Law School of Harvard University.

The head-notes are always, and the arguments generally,

omitted.

As one of the main objects in the study of cases is to acquire skill and confidence in extracting the ratio decidendi, the omission of head-notes from a collection like this is an essential part of the scheme. To thrust before the eyes of a student of law the answer to the problem contained in a case is like telling a student in arithmetic the answer to his sum before he does it, with the additional disadvantage that the answer in the head-note is

often wrong.

On the other hand, the omission of the arguments is an evil, but a necessary one. To have retained them would either have compelled the exclusion of many valuable cases, or else have swollen the size and expense of volumes already larger and more costly than I could wish.

With the exception of the head-notes and arguments, and of a few passages the omission of which is duly noted, the cases are reprinted literally from the reports; but I have striven after some consistency in the use of capitals and italics, and where a citation was obviously wrong, I have corrected it.

The book is intended for study, not for practice. That one who has carefully read these cases will find the volumes of considerable aid in after professional life, I have no doubt; but by one who has not thus become acquainted with their contents, the want of head-notes will probably be felt an invincible obstacle to their use.

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