Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/744

 «0. A CENTURY OF ENGLISH JUDICATURE, 1800 - 1900 ^ By Van Vechten Veedeb^ /. From the Beginning of the Century to the Common Law Procedure Act of 1852 FAR into the nineteenth century the administration of English law was characterized by methods and aims which belonged to the past. The traditional division be- tween law and equity, in courts having no common historical origin and administering justice on principles essentially unlike, went far beyond the requirements of a rational division of labor. Law and equity applied divers rules to the same subject matters, and afforded different remedies for similar wrongs. In consequence of the refusal of the common law courts to recognize claims and defences which equity allowed, judgments obtained at common law were often nullified by injunctions obtained in equity. Theoret- ically the two jurisdictions were well defined, but in practice there was often uncertainty as to the proper forum. Suits in chancery were constantly dismissed because it appeared at the hearing that there was a remedy at law, while plain- tiffs were non-suited at law because they should have sued in equity. Even when he found himself in the right forum, the perplexed litigant was driven backward and forward from law to equity in order to obtain complete redress. Bag, volume XIII. (1901), pp. 23 et seq, and volume XIV. (1902), 27 et seq.; it has been revised by the author for this collection. Other Publications: "Lord Bowen," "Lord Westbury," "Sir Alex- ander Cockburn," Harvard Law Review (1897-1900); Legal Master- pieces (1903) ; and two other essays reprinted in the present collec- tion. 780
 * This essay was first published as a series of articles in the Green
 * Member of the Bar of New York City; M. A. Union College.