ON THE LAW OF PARTNERSHIP AND JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES, ACCORDING TO THE LAW OF SCOTLAND, INCLUDING PRIVATE COPARTNERIES, COMMON LAW COMPANIES, BY FRANCIS WILLIAM CLARK, ADVOCATE. VOL. II. EDINBURGH: -T. & T. CLARK, LAW BOOKSELLERS, GEORGE STREET. MDCCCLXVI. [ 609 ] CHAPTER XII. JUDICIAL PLEADING AND ISSUES. observations. THE important bearing which the judicial pleadings have upon the Preliminary course and ultimate issue of a lawsuit, suggested the propriety of introducing into the present work a somewhat detailed examination of the principles and practical rules which regulate in Scotland the preparation of these writs, in so far as they relate to the many intricate questions that arise in partnership law. But after a considerable progress had been made in collecting and arranging the necessary materials, the author was induced to abandon his intention from the following considerations. Any one who is practically acquainted with our existing forms of process and pleading, and who has chosen to compare them with the corresponding machinery employed in other legal systems, cannot fail to be satisfied that some very important, and it may be radical, changes are necessary to enable our forensic business to be carried on with the despatch, cheapness, and precision attained elsewhere, and which the people of this country are entitled to demand. It may indeed be said, that the present system only exists by sufferance, and will give place to another, whenever the mercantile community are sufficiently alive to their interests. If, therefore, these views be at all well founded, any minute analysis of the existing forms could serve little good purpose. But apart from this, the author soon became satisfied, that in the absence of any separate Scotch law work on pleading, to which reference might be made for the exposition of its general principles, it would be impossible to explain their application to the law of partnership in an intelligible manner, without entering into a full examination of the whole theory and practice of the system of pleading presently adopted in Scotland,-an undertaking which |