ΤΟ AN ENGLISH JUDGE, SOMETIME GUEST OF THE NEW YORK BAR, AND OF COUNTRY, TOWN, AND COMMONWEALTH, WHO, WHERE OTHERS ΤΟ JOHN DUKE, LORD COLERIDGE. PREFACE. THE Introduction renders unnecessary any other extended prefatory remarks; for I assume, or rather trust, that the Introduction will be read. Indeed I cannot too strongly urge those who would use this book most effectively to read with care the Introduction, and also the opening chapter on the Definition of Fraud. The reason will be obvious, upon the reading. The second volume, which will treat of fraud under the statutes, is well in hand, and will be completed as soon as a due regard for the work may permit. The present volume is however entirely independent of the second, and makes a book complete in itself. The authorities are cited down to about six months ago, with a few important ones (such as Blackburn v. Vigors, 12 App. Cas. 531, reversing the judgment of the Court of Appeal, 17 Q. B. D. 553) down to the latest moment. One word more: This is not a second edition of a work on Fraud published for me in 1877, though it was at one time thought of making it such. That was professedly incomplete; it was indeed only a first attempt to explore part of a field which had scarcely been entered — I must of course except Kerr's notable survey by writers since the time of Hovenden. The present work is entirely new, rewritten from the first page to the last, though the materials of the former have been used as far as they went to serve a larger purpose, to wit, that of a treatise covering the whole field of fraud, on its civil side. MELVILLE M. BIGELOW. BOSTON, January 1, 1888. |