Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/387

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

( 159 )

¬rately, and that its equitable aid to the other courts, which was its real and admirable pro- vince in the legal constitution, was completely overshadowed and almost swallowed up by this ill-omened jurisdiction. — Unskilled indeed as I was in such subjects, I could see most plainly that if the powers of this high court, as they are marked out in the masterly sketch before the reader, could have been made its sole jurisdiction, constantly applied to assist the other courts, as must have been originally intended ; and if, as far as facts were concerned, the practice could have been assimilated to that of their other courts, by the admission of parole evidence, the justice of Armata would have been perfect. ¬But this unprincipled jurisdiction over landed property, wholly unconnected with its equitable office, M'as not the only obstruction which I found that the most indefatigable judge of this high court had to contend with. — Many other jurisdictions, never dreamed of in former times but which had arisen out of new conditions of ¬society, ¬