Page:Story of a Great Court.djvu/123

 to practically deprive the public of redress or relief in many great emergencies, when only prompt action by the court of last resort could be effective.

Among the more important legal principles laid down during this period are the following: that a ministerial officer is protected in the execution of a writ regular on its face and issued by a competent tribunal, so long as he has no knowledge of any lack of jurisdiction on the part of the tribunal which issued it; that repeal by implication is not favored in the law and that on the contrary courts are bound to uphold the prior law if by reasonable rules of construction the two acts may well subsist together; that a deed, absolute on its face, will be held a mortgage whenever the real transaction is a loan of money and the deed is given as security for its repayment; that the right of trial by jury secured by the constitution contemplates a jury of twelve men as understood at common law and not of any less number; that in ejectment the plaintiff must recover, if at all, on the strength of his own title, and that there may be dedication of lands to public use by parol; that a deed obtained by duress is void, not only as between the original parties, but as to a subsequent purchaser with notice; that a riparian owner upon a meandered stream owns to the thread of the stream, subject to the public easement; that a public nuisance may be enjoined at the suit of a private person if he suffer a private or special injury therefrom;