The Comic Blackstone (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER Of Alienation By Deed. to plunge into the depths of this snb- ject, we will first take breath on the margin to consider what we are about, and having asked ourselves the question, What is a deed? we shall proceed in our own peculiar way to answer it. A deed is said by Coke to be a writing sealed and delivered by the parties, but a letter sealed by the postman and delivered by himself is not a deed ? and we defy Coke to make it one. Itis called inLatin/actow, meaning something done, but we are of opinion that the vfordfactum in law proceedings should have a wider sense, and imply somebody done as well as something. There is no doubt that Shakspere, when he made the witch in Macbeth exclaim, " I'll do, I'll do, I'll do," had some legal craftsman in his eye, and the subsequent expression " a deed without a name " proves that he intended an enormous do and a deed to be synonymous. An indenture is a deed cut at the top to resemble the teeth of a saw, which is emblematical of sharp work according to some, but others attribute it to the two parts of a deed having been cut from the same parchment. A deed made by one party is called a deed poll, from its being polled or closely shaven, " and this," says Fleta, " is typical of the client, who is generally pretty closely shaven." The requisites of a deed are:?1st, persons to contract, and a thing to be contracted for; there must be something to give, somebody to give it, and somebody to take, but if there were any difficulty about the latter, there is the lawyer at hand who is ready to take anything. 2nd. There must be a consideration?but it is to be feared many deeds are executed without any consideration at all?and there is a case in the American books of a man without consideration having, on leaving his chambers, hun...