Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/407

virtue of the Statute of Limitations, must were under this or that so-called disability. have cured his defect in title. This title These exceptions, however, exist only for could not now be defeated by the discovery claimants who are disabled when the claim of new evidence. Artemisia should have our first arose.' At that time the claimant was sympathy, for she was without remedy. Tittlebat's great-grandfather, and he was Many similar mistakes might be men beyond seas; but when he died, leaving a tioned, but these are enough, perhaps, to daughter two years old, then, by the author show that to write fiction without seeking ities, was there an end of disabilities. This legal advice is highly dangerous. They all two-year-old daughter was Tittlebat's grand betray, not misjudgment, but neglect of the mother; and Tittlebat, therefore, bringing law, the usual source of error where the legal suit at twenty-seven, was of course too late. Dr. Warren relied, possibly, on a dictum question is involved incidentally or has crept in without the writer's seeing it at all. There of Lord Mansfield 2 uttered shortly after the is a special class of fiction, however, where supposed dates of this fictitious decision. the interest is directed chiefly to the curious Such reliance can hardly be justified, for by operation of some particular rule or rules the time the book was written4 that dictum of law. Here, to state and apply these rules had been generally discredited. s Another barrister to devote his law to correctly is all-important; but the writers fictitious uses is Rider Haggard. In Mr. who attempt this sort of thing, usually men who have had some legal schooling, are Meeson's Will he assembles upon an island four castaways, to wit: a beautiful and frequently lost in their own mazes. Perhaps the most ambitious book of this tender-hearted young woman, two sailors, sort is Ten Thousand a Year by Samuel and a dying millionaire who is anxious to Warren, barrister and physician. It tells of make a will in favor of a worthy nephew hitherto neglected. For lack of writing a miserable draper's clerk, Tittlebat Tit mouse, who is caught up by some crafty materials the tender-hearted young woman solicitors and proved by them to be entitled submits her back to a testamentary tattoo to a large English estate. The narrative is ing by one of the sailors. The dying mil saturated with law. In a detailed report of lionaire signs by awkward, painful thrusts, the great law suit pedigrees are charted and and both sailors witness. The young woman, thus inscribed, returns to England, and is many points resolved. A plain reason ap pears in the facts, however, why Tittlebat admitted to probate. 1 Stat. 21 Jac. I. c. 16 § 2; Griswold v. Butler, 3 Titmouse should not have won. His claim, Conn. 227; Thorp v. Raymond, 16 How. (U. S.) 247. like that of Artemisia of the Mirror, was 2 In Cotterell v. Uutton, 4 Taunt. 826, 830 (181 4). 3 The book states that Tittlebat was about two years outlawed. It had come to him from his old at his mother's death, which preceded his father's by great-grandfather, who had been put out of some five years, the latter's occurring in 1793. By reckoning in the statement that Tittlebat was twentypossession seventy years before. A claim seven when he sued, the date of the decision is approxi mated at 1813. to land, as we have seen, becomes unen 1 It came out in Blackwood's Magazine beginning forceable if not asserted within twenty years October, 1839. 5 Blanshard, Statutes of Limitations, p. 22 (1826); after it first arose. Dr. Warren disposes of Griswold v. Butler, 3 Conn. 227, 244 (1819); (see also this objection by mentioning exceptions in 2 Preston, Abstract 0/ Title. 2d ed. p. 341 (1824) with reference to the Statute of Fines, which has similar favor of claimants who are infants, married language to that of the general Statute. See Blanshard, women, or beyond seas, and by showing supra, p. 19. Further decision has been prevented by the express provision for this point in Stat. 3 and 4 Wm. that Tittlebat's ancestors, one after another, IV. c. 27.