POPULAR LAW-DICTIONARY, FAMILIARLY EXPLAINING THE TERMS AND NATURE OF English Law; ADAPTED TO THE COMPREHENSION OF PERSONS NOT EDUCATED AND AFFORDING INFORMATION PECULIARLY USEFUL TO MAGISTRATES, BY THOMAS EDLYNE TOMLINS, ATTORNEY AND SOLICITOR. (、;, LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER-ROW, PREFACE. LAW DICTIONARIES have been long familiar to the Public; but, notwithstanding most of them have been carefully compiled and elaborately digested, they have been rendered useful only to the professional student or practitioner. An attempt has now been made to supply to the Public a familiar exposition of the Law without leading the reader into disquisitions foreign to the purposes of ordinary inquiry, or embarrassing him with technical phraseology. The subject of English Law and Government is so varied and extended, that the scope of this work has been necessarily confined to those matters and incidents forming the ordinary and daily subjects of discourse, use, and application. But, so far as the limits of such a work permit, attention has been given to explain many matters which, from their nature, have been hitherto deemed exclusively fit for professional consideration; care has also been taken to familiarise the Public on some few matters involving legal antiquities. To condense matter of almost indefinite extension, and which is continually accumulating, has been a difficult, and perhaps a hazardous, attempt. The Author, however, confidently trusts, the whole work having undergone a careful and able revision by an eminent Barrister, and occasionally by another connected with a similar work, whom the author would be proud to name if permitted, and the late alterations and improvements in the Law, including those of last Session, being noticed, that it will prove no unsatisfactory offering to the Public. 7. Cook's Court, Lincoln's Inn, 20th February, 1838. A 2 A POPULAR LAW DICTIONARY, A. ABANDONMENT. In Insurance, is where the assured abandons or leaves the cargo or ship insured for the underwriters, resorting to them as for a total loss in the event of a casualty whereby the voyage is lost, the adventure determined or rendered not worth prosecuting, or where unnecessary expense and liability would be incurred by attempts to preserve the cargo or ship; these being, constructively, total losses. The damage to the cargo must exceed half the value, to entitle the assured to abandon, and thus recover as for a total loss; but if neither the thing insured nor the voyage be lost, and the damage does not amount to a moiety of the value, the assured is not entitled to abandon. The stranding of the ship is a sufficient cause of abandonment, if the ship was on the ground or strand in such a situation as a vessel ought not to be in, while prosecuting the voyage, and sustained actual damage thereby ; but the mere striking on a rock and getting off again, which is called "touch and go," is not deemed a stranding. In respect to the abandonment of the ship, where a vessel is much injured, that, in order to render her seaworthy, it would cost as much as she was originally worth, or as much as would build a new ship, or it appears upon a survey that the vessel is so shattered by the voyage that the repairs would exceed the value, and she is broken up and sold, the assured may abandon and recover for a total loss; the question being, whether the particular injuries could not have been repaired so as to render the ship seaworthy for the remainder of the voyage, and not whether the ship was worth repairing generally; and so far the doctrine of abandonment seems settled on tolerably certain principles. In saving the ship or cargo, the crew are entitled to a compensation payable out of the goods saved, for their labour, if there is sufficient for that purpose. The assured is bound to act promptly, after he has received intelligence of a casualty, in declaring his intention of abandoning the portion saved: and his notice to the underwriters or their agent, acquainting them of his intention of either abandoning or claiming for a partial loss is irrevocable, and cannot be withdrawn. The not giving a notice within a reasonable time is deemed conclusive of his intention to claim for a partial loss only. The underwriters, upon abandonment, are therefore entitled to every right the assured had in the things abandoned, or the produce of the sale of the ship made by the captain, who has a general discretion to deal with the ship and cargo in a foreign port as he may think best, but B |