AND THEIR JURISDICTION A TREATISE ON THE JURISDICTION OF THE COURTS OF THE PRESENT DAY, HOW MEANS OF ACQUIRING AND LOSING IT BY JOHN D. WORKS 11 Formerly one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the State of California, and of Causes from State to Federal Courts" CINCINNATI THE ROBERT CLARKE COMPANY. 1894 PREFACE. The subject of jurisdiction is one of the most important connected with the administration of justice, and one upon which, in almost all of its branches, the authorities are numerous and conflicting. This being so, the most difficult task in the preparation of a work on jurisdiction is not to find authorities to support the views and conclusions of the author, but to arrive at the underlying principles controlling the numerous questions involved in the subject, to distinguish the cases, and to avoid loading the work down with too many and useless citations. A careful study of the decided cases proves that in many of them the courts have made no effort to ascertain upon what principle a given rule of law, affecting the question, should be maintained or overthrown, but have contented themselves with laying down or discarding the rule, and citing other cases which have done the same. thing in the same way. So we have the number of cases for and against a given proposition rising in columns higher and higher; the true or accepted rule depending, too often, upon the height of one column or the other, or the weight of authority according to numbers for or against it. Such authorities are worth nothing to the practitioner, except when he appears before a court which is controlled by this peculiar, not to say unfortunate, rule, of deciding cases by such a test of the weight of authority, when his diligence in unearthing more of the decided cases than his opponent is sure to bring him success. The intelligent lawyer looks for something better than this, searches for the guiding principle that should sustain him, and hopes to convince the court, not by authorities alone, but by reason and authority. An earnest effort has been made in the preparation of (iii) |