CORNISH'S TREATISE ON PURCHASE DEEDS, OF FREEHOLD ESTATES, AND INCIDENTALLY OF LEASEHOLD PROPERTY, WITH Precedents AND PRACTICAL NOTES. A New Edition. BY GEORGE HORSEY, Esq. OF GRAY'S INN, BARRISTER-AT-LAW, LECTURER'S PRIZEMAN, 1849. LONDON: SHAW AND SONS, FETTER LANE, Law Printers and Publishers. PREFACE BY THE EDITOR. ON presenting a new Edition of the late Mr. Cornish's Treatise on Purchase Deeds, the Editor ventures to make a few remarks on the character of the original work. Upwards of twenty years have passed since the publication, and those years have been the most significant in the history of our real property system. The most important changes and innovations have been made. The ancient modes of transferring property by the fictitious litigation of FINES and RECOVERIES have been swept away, and in their place disentailing assurances and acknowledgments are substituted. CANONS of DESCENT, founded on worthiness of blood and the venerable feudal system, have given way to enactments framed in accordance with more enlightened and juster views of relative ties and social requirements. DOWER has also been adjusted, though in a singular manner; for after being made to attach on all beneficial inheritances, it is by the same Act placed wholly in the husband's power-a satire on the panegyric of Blackstone, that the female sex is a great favourite of the laws of England, (vol. i., 445). The LIMITATION of ACTIONS and SUITS relating to real property, and the consequent quieting of possessions in the hands of certain and known persons, although perhaps not strictly rightful owners, has been effected by statutes of some complexity. Then the whole law of WILLS has been remodelled, and the testamentary disposition of real and personal estate placed on the same footing. And, lastly, several statutes affecting real property in its modes of transfer have been passed, with various success and operation. But, notwithstanding these great and numerous changes seem to shake the law to its foundab |