PREFACE.

THE object of this Publication, which will be devoted to subjects of Legal importance unconnected with Politics, is to supply the Profession weekly with an interesting GUIDE to what is daily passing in all our Courts of Law and Equity, (including the Courts of Bankruptcy and Insolvency, where points of practice and decisions upon new Laws shall occur), and also to afford useful information upon which reliance may be placed, as well by the experienced Practitioner as by the youthful Student.

The Proprietors have been for a length of time pressed to publish a Periodical of this nature; and they consider the present time to be peculiarly favourable to its production. We live in an age in which it is with some difficulty that a Practitioner can understand what THE LAW really is upon any subject. So great and varied are the constant changes --so often are those changes again changedand as often are Laws made that will not work at all, that he is never certain what course he should pursue.

The Student is placed in even a more distressing situation-he commences his career and studies one set of Laws, and ends his clerkship under another set; consequently as ignorant of the Laws as be began.

To remedy these evils, as far as is practicable, will be one of the important subjects to which this Publication is devoted, by affording to Practitioners such useful information and knowledge as shall help them to keep pace with the times; and to the Students VOL. I.

the means of acquiring progressive knowledge that shall be beneficial to them, and enable them to pass their examinations with satisfaction and credit. To facilitate the latter object, it is intended to propose Legal Problems that shall be open to all, and which will be solved in subsequent Numbers.

It is proposed, as the general plan of this Periodical, that it should consist of an Original Reading upon some one of the laws in actual operation, every week (the present Number will commence with the new laws affecting Real Property); of brief REPORTS of CASES IN ALL THE COURTS, superior and inferior, where points of law or practice have been determined, and in the House of Lords, with explanatory remarks; of NEW RULES. and ORDERS made by any of the Courts; of all Legislative alterations-the practical effects of which will be explained as occasion may serve; of all Business of the Courts, viz. the Sittings, Cause Papers, &c.; of Names of Articled Clerks applying for admission, and passing their examination, and of those who shall be admitted; of Contributions of character and interest; of occasional Reviews of Law Books; and of such other matter as will be useful and interesting as well to Practitioners and their Arti

cled Clerks as to the whole Profession of the

Law.

It is also proposed, in the course of this Publication, to shew the liabilities of all persons connected with JOINT STOCK COM PANIES of every description, and to notice their progress judicially.

B

LAWS OF REAL PROPERTY.

ESSAY I.

On the Title a Purchaser may require. SINCE the passing of the Statute of Limitations, 3 & 4 W. 4, c. 27, many questions have arisen in practice (caused by the absence of any judicial decision) as to the title which a purchaser may now require. By section 2 of this statute it is enacted, that "after the 31st December, 1833, no person shall make an entry or distress, or bring an action to recover any land or rent but within twenty years next after the time at which the right to make such entry or distress, or to bring such action, shall have first accrued to some person through whom he claims; or, if such right shall not have accrued to any person through whom he claims, then within twenty years next after the time at which the right to make such entry or distress, or to bring such action, shall have first accrued to the person making or bringing the same."

Previous to the passing of this statute a sixty years' title was in all cases required, and even that period was not at all times considered sufficient. Lord Eldon, in Paine v. Miller, (6 Ves. Jun. 349; see Robinson v. Elliott, 1 Russ. 599), was of opinion, that an abstract not going further back than 43 years was a serious objection to the title. It is necessary that we should briefly refer to the practice as it formerly was, that the new law may be the more perfectly understood. The period of sixty years was considered heretofore necessary with reference to the first Statute of Limitations, 32 Hen. 8, c. 2, s. 1, which enacted that no person should sue, have, or maintain any writ of right, or make any prescription, title, or claim of, to, or for any lands, &c., but only of the seisin or possession of his ancestor within 60 years next before the teste of the writ, or next before the prescription, title, or claim, sued, commenced, brought, made, or had.

make an entry upon any lands, &c. but within 20 years after his right and title shall have first descended or accrued.

The Third Statute of Limitations, 4 & 5 Anne, c. 16, s. 16, enacted that no claim or entry to avoid a fine with proclamations should be sufficient, unless upon such entry or claim an action be commenced within one year after, and prosecuted with effect.

It is very erroneously considered by many persons that a twenty years' title is now sufficient and all that can be required by a purchaser. We will endeavour to shew that this is a mistaken notion, however largely it may be supported, and that no purchaser can be satisfied with a vendor's title depending solely on an undisturbed possession of twenty years; but, on the contrary, that a purchaser is warranted in requiring the same abstract of title as heretofore.

An Ejectment must now be brought within 20 years after the party's right accrued. Heretofore the mere nonpayment of rent was not alone sufficient to render the possession of the tenant adverse to that of his landlord; but the new statute has the effect of making 20 years' possession without payment of rent, or any written acknowledgment of a tenancy, a bar to an ejectment. Suppose, however, the possession to be adverse to a tenant for life, although the tenant for life himself may be barred, it will not run against the reversioner or remainderman, because it will require another period of 20 years' adverse possession, commencing from the death of the tenant for life, to bar him, except in certain cases, where the right of any person to make an entry or distress, or bring an action to recover any land or rent to which he may have been entitled for an estate or interest in possession, shall have been barred by the determination of the limited period, and such person shall at any time during the same period have been entitled to any other estate, interest, right, or possibility, in reversion, remainder, or otherwise, in or to the

The Second Statute of Limitations, 21 Jac. 1, c. 16, enacted that no person should

action, can be made or brought by such person, or any person claiming through him, to recover such land or rent in respect of