THE HONOURS EXAMINATION DIGEST: COMPRISING ALL THE QUESTIONS IN Conveyancing, Equity, Common Law, Bankruptcy, Probate, ASKED AT THE SOLICITORS' HONOURS EXAMINATIONS SINCE WITH THE ANSWERS THERETO. AUTHOR OF BY JOHN F. HAYNES, LL.D., HAYNE'S CHANCERY PRACTICE," "THE STUDENT'S STATUTES," ETC., ETC. AND THOMAS A. NELHAM, SOLICITOR (HONOURS). BOD LONDON: STEVENS AND SONS, 119, CHANCERY LANE, Law Publishers and Booksellers. 1883. PREFACE. THE idea which led to the Law Institution establishing an independent examination for Solicitors desiring to obtain Honours, about the same time as they are passing their Final Examination, was no doubt a good one, and shows that that Institution is to some extent at least keeping pace with the times. But after we have carefully, as far as our time permitted, answered the whole of the questions in all the subjects asked at this examination during more than three years, we are compelled candidly to give it as our opinion that this Honours Examination, excellent as it is, is still capable of many improvements. For instance, the examinations are not all uniformly difficult, and consequently a second or third class man at one examination is not unlikely to be a better man than a first class man at another examination. Again, the questions are in too many cases very far-fetched, and of such a character that it is to be feared that very few, if any, of our leading Counsel or Solicitors could answer them correctly from memory alone. Again, some of the questions are very long, and yet involve but simple answers; whilst others are so intricate that it takes a student a much longer time to answer them satisfactorily than ought to be the case. Having said so much on the one side, we think it only fair to add that really good men who have gone in for Honours and deserved them, have, as far as our experience has gone, as a a general rule, been successful. We think, however, that the defects in the questions, some of which we have endeavoured to point out above, will easily be remedied if the examiners will have the goodness to make them such that they will bring out the knowledge of deeply versed students, and send empty away, so far as Honours are concerned, those students who are mere hotbeds of law crammed up with recent cases and statutes, in addition to the leading principles of the law. We would here warn those students who contemplate using this work as a cram book that it will be useless as such, and would inform them that not more than eight or a dozen questions altogether have been repeated in another form at a subsequent examination. This book notices throughout all the modern leading cases and statutes, and is the first of the kind which embraces Criminal Law and Practice, Bankruptcy Law and Practice, Probate and Divorce Law and Practice, and Admiralty and Ecclesiastical Law and Practice. The January Questions came out after the book had been almost completely written and arranged, and are therefore answered in Appendix A., and just as we are going to press the April Questions are ready, so we have thought it best to add them in Appendix B. If a Second Edition should be required, the later questions will be incorporated in the text and answered, and a few of the other questions will be answered more fully. We have here to thank the authors of the works referred to in the answers for the use we have made of their works, which are those most generally used by the profession and students; and at the same time any assistance derived from the study of other works is here gratefully acknowledged. J. F. H. T. A. N. 7 GRAY'S INN PLACE, LONDON, W.C. July, 1883. |