PREFACE. It was at one time hoped that the book in this Series on Justice and Police would be written by Mr. C. P. Ilbert. But he was called away to the Council Board of India, and after a while the work was placed in my hands. My already great regret that the book comes not from him but from me has been increased by reading two chapters of the unfinished work that he left behind him. They were about the County Courts and the relation between Equity and Law, and I have had the great advantage of using them in the revision of what I had already written on the same topics; but for no part of this book can he be held answerable. I am also deep in debt to many writers on English law, but above all to Mr. Justice Stephen and Dr. Rudolph Gneist. This book is so short and slight that I must content myself with a general and inadequate acknowledgment of my |