:

THE

PRACTICE

IN

CIVIL ACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS AT LAW,

IN. MASSACHUSETTS.

BY SAMUEL HOWE,

LATE JUDGE OF THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS.

EDITED BY

RICHARD S. FAY AND JONATHAN CHAPMAN.

COUNSELLORS AT LAW.

BOSTON:

HILLIARD, GRAY, AND COMPANY.

L11091

SEP 1 0 1936

Entered according to the act of Congress in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four, by RICHARD S. FAY AND JONATHAN CHAPMAN,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

J. D. FREEMAN, PRINTER, 110, Washington Street.

PREFACE.

THE basis of the following work upon Practice, consists of a series of lectures, which were prepared by the late lamented Judge Howe, and delivered to the students composing his law school at Northampton. It was his intention, when they should have been completed, to have published them; but before the outlines of his proposed work were entirely filled up, death arrested the progress of his labors. Those who enjoyed the benefit of his instructions, may well regret, that he could not have been spared to have completed his career of usefulness; and to any who knew him, it need scarcely be said, that by his decease, the students of the law were deprived of a most eminently gifted teacher, the profession of a distinguished member, the bench of a bright ornament, and society of a most pure and excellent

man.

After the death of Judge Howe, his lectures having been circulated in manuscript, and their usefulness appreciated, the late Professor John H. Ashmun, who had been associated with Judge Howe, in the law school, for which the lectures were originally composed, undertook, in conjunction with us, to prepare them for the press. How entirely competent to the undertaking, Professor Ashmun was, his early distinction in the profession abundantly testifies. The illness, however, under which he suffered, prevented him from preparing much of the new