Chapters from the Biblical Law. gambling horsedealer, who had years before persuaded Colonel Angus' daughter to elope with him, and had broken her heart by illtreatment and driven her to an early grave. Two boys born of the marriage were from the time of their mother's death maintained and educated by Colonel Angus, who had taken steps to have their father removed (mm their guardianship, and made them wards of the Court of Chancery, with Colonel Angus and his son as joint guardians. There were traces of great skill and cun ning on the part of Caryl throughout the whole matter. Colonel Angus had really had a slight stroke, and his life was a very precarious one, and Caryl knew it; he also knew of the absence of the colonel and his <on at Brighton, by the doctor's orders, at the time I drew the will; and his fertile brain conceived the plot of personating Neil An gus, and of calling on me, then a young and inexperienced solicitor, of whom he had heard through some outside stock-broker's clerk, and he had an accomplice at hand in the person of another black-leg turfite, who had at one time been a travelling actor, and had served time for a previous forgery.
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This man was easily induced to study Col onel Angus' handwriting, and to act the part of the sick testator to the life. But a feel ing of respect for the memory of his dead daughter, and a desire to protect the name of his grandsons from being mixed up in the shameful business, led Colonel Angus to forbear to prosecute his son-in-law, who died a few weeks before the death of the old colonel himself. My story is ended; but I can never be too thankful that I was enabled to take part in frustrating the conspiracy, so cleverly plotted, during Colonel Angus' lifetime, and before the occurrence of his death had ren dered the matter one of public concern. As for my own part in the drama, I leave my readers to blame me as much as they may think I may deserve it. I am older now, and probably I should be slower about pre paring a will for an unknown man; but, save for this, I think the course I adopted throughout was what any other young law yer in my position would have adopted, without suspecting the presence of a snake in the verdant herbage.
CHAPTERS FROM THE BIBLICAL LAW. BY DAVID WERNER II. AMKAM.
THE PURCHASE OF THE CAVE OF MACHPKLAH. THE twenty-third chapter of Genesis con tains the record of an ancient convey ance of land, differing materially in form from the methods of conveyance familiar to us in modern times, yet possessing charac teristics similar to those of the Roman and the Common Law. The old forms of procedure here recorded arc the groundwork upon which modern systems have been estab
lished. They speak of the days when tribal ownership of land was still in force, when written records were not, and when the pub lic assembly, the town or village council of elders, was required to sanction the legal act of conveyance. In those days formality was greater than in our times, for it was only by the obser vance of great formality that rights and obli
