Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/386

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

( 158 )

¬On conversing with the most learned men, I found that this strange emancipation of real property from the dominion of the ancient courts to this more modern tribunal, was not merely a change of one jurisdiction for another of the same character, but as entire an alteration of the whole system of the law as could possibly exist in countries the most remotely separated, depriving the subject of the most valuable part of the legal constitution ; the forms of this court excluding oral testimony, and requiring that not only the pleadings and answers of the parties, but all the facts, however numerous the witnesses or however voluminous their testi- mony, should be reduced into writing, at an expense quite ruinous, and creating a delay destructive of the ends of justice. ¬I found moreover, that this dominion over land and over personal contracts so connected with it as to be quite inseparable, was in itself more than sufficient to occupy the whole time of any single judge, or even of twelve if they sat sepa- rately, ¬