ON THE

sies.

LAWS OF ENGLAND

APPLICABLE TO REAL PROPERTY.

BY

SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, KNT.

ADAPTED TO THE PRESENT STATE OF THE LAW IN ONTARIO,

BY

ALEXANDER LEITH, Q. C.,

AND

JAMES FREDERICK SMITH, LL.B.,

OF OSGOODE HALL, BARRISTERS-AT-LAW.

SECOND EDITION.

Toronto:

ROWSELL & HUTCHISON,

KING-STREET.

1880.

Entered according to the Act of Parliament of Canada in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty, by ALEXANDER LEITH and JAMES FREDERICK SMITH, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.

PRINTED AND BOUND BY HUNTER, ROSE & Co.,

TORONTO.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

INCE the first edition of this work, by MR. LEITH, was published,

SINCE

so many changes have been made in the law of real property as

to necessitate a second edition.

Relying more on this necessity, and on the fact that there is no work of a similar character applicable to this Province, than on its intrinsic merit, we publish this new edition; much contained in the first has been omitted, as for instance, the law of Descent at Common Law, and under the Statute of William, as having become almost obsolete; so also that branch of the law relating to Executions, as not appertaining to a work dealing chiefly with the general principles of the law of Real Property. On the other hand, much has been added, including the subject of Devise, under the present Wills Act, the position of Married Women, as to their real estate, and remarks on the Statutes passed since the publication of the first edition.

The additions which have been made to the text, with the exception of chapters II and XXII (which consist entirely of original matter), have been put within inverted commas, in order that the reader may at once be able to distinguish between the original text and the added matter. The sections of the original work which have been retained are distinguished in the margin by an asterisk and number.