Legal Reminiscences.

Frenchman, in conformity with chancery practice, had filed a cross-bill, in which he asked the chancellor to enforce his contract, although it was not in writing; to which the millionaire answered that it was void under the statute of frauds. The opinion of the one majority of the court traces the history of chancery from its prehistoric origin to the present time. This was necessary in order to disclose its unsus pected capability to disregard the constitu tion, repeal a statute and nullify a public policy. Prolix and minute as this history was, it omitted all explanation of the term "getting a man into chancery," an expres sion supposed to have some connection with the noble and manly act of self-defense. With this exception the history is satisfac torily complete. The relation of chancery to infants, married women, idiots, unmarried spinsters and other insane persons and the rest of mankind was discussed, with inci dental references to the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and every creeping thing that creepeth. Having laid this broad and comprehensive basis, the opinion with ex treme caution approached the case before the court. There were expressions in and connected with the first bill of complaint which might lead an inexperienced person to suppose that the millionaire intended to claim that the Frenchman's contract was void under the statute. But he did not say so. He said that the contract was verbal, that it was not in writing, that it conveyed no title to or interest in the property. But he did not say that it was void by the statute of frauds. The statute of frauds was not mentioned in the first bill. Except to plead that statute there might be no sense in his bill. That the contract was void under that statute was an inference from the facts stated. A party had no right to compel the court to draw an inference. Therefore the court decided that the first bill was fatally defective. Again it was argued that the purpose of a pleading was to bring out the understanding

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of the parties that here the answer of the defendant stated in express terms that the millionaire claimed that the contract was void under the statute of frauds, and that he purchased for the express purpose of claim ing the benefit of the statute, that this averment showed how the Frenchman un derstood the first bill, and that was suffi cient. But there was a conclusive answer to this claim. Chancery never permitted a defective pleading to be amended or helped out by another pleading. The first bill was therefore incurably defective in its omission to aver that the contract was void by the statute of frauds. There was one point made in the argu ment which had given the court some trouble. It seemed that the first bill had been dismissed, and the second, the only bill now before the court, was not open to the objection, for it set out the statute of frauds as a defense to the Frenchman's claim with great prolixity of detail. It was argued that if the present bill was a good one it was of no consequence how many bad ones had been dismissed. To the unlearned mind there did appear to be a certain plausibility in this argument. Those who were "unfamiliar with the myste ries of chancery were frequently misled by such suggestions. The statute of frauds was a technical defense. Chancery discour aged technical defenses and never permitted them to be made but once. These defenses were boomerangs which a party hurled at his peril. If not fixed right end first, they were like the vaulting ambition mentioned in Hamlet, ex parte, 4 Shaks. 221, that o'erleapt itself and fell on the other side. In chancery they were subject to an invariable rule. If one of them, the statute of frauds, for example, was not pleaded correctly the first time, the party was held to have re nounced it and could never plead it again. In this case then the averments of the sec ond bill were not before the court and would be disregarded.