ion has been scarcely even touched by the
"amending hand," which lately (1834) cut away so many cumbrous,
complicated, and _quasi_ obsolete portions of the law of action, (see
Stat. 3 and 4 Will. 4, c. 27, Sec. 36.) The progress of this action is
calculated to throw much light on some of our early history and
jurisprudence. See an interesting sketch of it in the first chapter of
Mr. Sergeant Adams' Treatise on Ejectment. It was resorted to for the
purpose of escaping from the other dilatory, intricate, and expensive
modes of recovering landed property anciently in existence. The
following is the description given of it by Lord Mansfield--and is
equally terse and correct, and applicable to the present mode of
procedure. "An EJECTMENT is an ingenious _fiction_ for the Trial of
Titles to the possession of Land. In _form_ it is a trick between two,
to dispossess a third by a sham suit and judgment. The artifice would be
criminal, unless the _Court_ converted it into a _fair_ trial with the
_proper_ party. The control the Court have over the judgment against the
Casual Ejector, enables them to put any _terms_ upon the plaintiff which
are _just_. He was soon ordered to give _notice_ to the _tenant in
possession_. When the tenant in possession _asked_ to be admitted
defendant, the Court was enabled to add CONDITIONS; and therefore
obliged him to _allow_ the fiction, and go to Trial on the _real
merits_."--(_Fair Claim_ v. _Sham Title_,[*] 3 Burr. 1294.) This action
is now, in effect, the only direct common-law remedy for the recovery of
land in England and Ireland; in many of the United States of America the
action of Ejectment is retained--"with its harmless, and--as matter of
history--curious and amusing English fictions."--(4 _Kent's Comment_. p.
70, note _e_:) but in New York, the action of Ejectment is "stripped of
all its fictitious parts."--(_Id. ib._)

[*] These fantastical names are now almost invariably abandoned for
those of "John Doe" and "Richard Roe."

Note 16. Page 309.

_Blackstone's Commentaries_, vol. iii. App. pp. ix. x.

Note 17. Page 310.

"A warranty will not extend to guard against defects which are plainly
and obviously the object of one's senses: as if a horse be warranted
perfect, and wants either a _tail_, or an _ear_: unless the buyer in
this case be blind."--3 _Blackst. Comm_. 166.

Note 18. Page 310.

On the 22d August, 1843, (since the publication of this work,) a brief
but most im