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34 34 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. any issues made or tendered by the pleadings, and then pronounces the judgment of the court upon such facts, such part of the judgment is superfluous and nugatory. See also iz Cal. 474. A judgment for the plaintiff must be limited by the facts stated in the complaint. When the defendant has answered, the court may, under the general prayer, grant any relief consistent with the facts alleged in the complaint, but under the general prayer no relief can be granted in equity beyond that which is authorized by the facts stated in the pleadings." ^ II. The Massachusetts statutes empower Massachusetts courts to decree alimony only *' according to the course of proceeding in ecclesiastical courts and in courts of equity." ^ In Lovett v, Lovett,^ the Supreme Court of Alabama says: *' The mode of proceeding in the ecclesiastical courts to obtain alimony is by an allegation of the * faculties,' as it has been called, on the part of the wife, setting out the estate of the husband." * George F. Ormsby, New York. 1 Davol V. Davol, 13 Mass. 264. An unauthorized alimony decree is not voidable, but void. Com. V. Blood, 97 Mass. 539. Divorce courts are, as to divorce matters, courts of limited and inferior jurisdiction. Rung9 V. Franklin, Texas, 1889, 3 Law R. Ann. 417. a Pub. Stat. c. 146, s. 33. 811 Ala. 771. ure will often render the judgment z/^/V/. The decree of a court upon oral allegations, without written pleadings [if that on which the decree is based], would be an idle act of no force. . . . Though the court may possess jurisdiction of a cause and of the parties, it is still limited in its modes of procedure." Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 733 : " Due process of law means a course of legal pro- ceedings according to those rules and principles which have been established in our systems of jurisprudence for the protection and enforcement of private rights." Also, Weber v. Weber, 16 Or. 163 ; Bunnell v, Bunnell, 25 Fed. Rep. 214 ; Anthony V. Kasey, 83 Va. 338 ; Wright v. Dann,22 Pick. 59; Stewart on M. & D., § 361 ; Bishop on M. & D., 2d vol., 6th ed., 467 ; 75 Pa. St. 460; Barber v. Root, 10 Mass. 265; Lowe V. Alexander, 15 Cal. 297 ; Orrok v. Orrok, i Mass. 341 ; Gaiquon v. Aster, 2 How. 341 ; Thatcher v. Powell, 6 Wheat. 119 ; 34 Cal. 333 ; 23 La. An. 483 ; Beadleston V. Beadleston, 103 N. Y. 404; Bishop on M. & D., §446, 447 ; Phelan v. Phelan, 12 Fla. 449; Campbell v. Campbell, 37 Wis. 208 ; Hoke v. Henderson, 25 Am. Dec. 681 (4 Devereux, Law, i) ; Murray v, Hoboken, 18 How. 272; Rees v. City of Watertown, 19 Wall. 122 ; Huber v. Reilly, 53 Penn. St. 118 ; Freeman on Judgments, § 587.
 * "Windsor v. McVeigh, 93 U. S. 283 : ** A departure from established modes of proced-