know which of the two is claimed. It may be added that the effect of the enactment would be to enable a plaintiff to bring detinue for an ox that had been not only converted but eaten up.

The amendments proposed to sections 2717 and 2734 are intended to make these sections conform to such of the amendments as are above censured and opposed, and should fall with the latter. They are objectionable in other respects, and would have the effect of unduly hampering the defendant in actions of unlawful detainer and ejectment.

Indeed, there are many things in the bills and amendments proposed which seem to be based on the idea that plaintiffs are to be made, or are and should be, the special favorites of the law, and of the courts. But the most glaring illustration of this is found in sections 11 and 13 of the act found in the Appendix to the report, pages 22 and 23, which is favored by the Special Committee, but not reported for action now, with comments and criticisms, upon which act we will not, therefore, now unduly occupy the time of the Association.

Mr. Pettit: I have labored to conceive of any equitable defence the defendant may make that is not already provided for by this Section 3299. What imaginable equity may exist that may not be brought forward and availed of under the statute as it now stands, I cannot see. I do not think that I am entitled to occupy the time of this Association any longer; and I think I have given expression, in what I have written, to my views as well as I could in any oral argument.

George M. Cochran, Jr., of Staunton: Mr. President,-I feel very much gratified at the report presented by the gentleman from Fluvanna. I trust the other members listened as attentively as I did. The gentlemen tell us frankly that their object is practically to do away with our present common form of pleading. Now, sir, I believe that a very large majority of the Bar of our State are opposed to this bill; and if most of our lawyers are opposed to it, and the majority of us do not favor this reform, why should we take the preliminary steps? I believe that we will emasculate and confuse the most perfect system of procedure that exists. I think that Virginia owes a debt to

Conway Robinson and John M. Patton that she can never repay for their codification of the Virginia Statutes. They have eradicated everything that was regarded as technical in form, and retained everything that was essential; and if that had been done in New York, I am told, Mr. Patteson would never have had the Revised Procedure of New York to consult in drawing this bill. It is because New York never did what Mr. Robinson and Mr. Patton did for Virginia that she has what we are now asked to adopt. These gentlemen tell us in plain words what they are after. I think it is dangerous to follow them. There is room for compromise in this matter. I think by a simple amendment of our Code we can give them what they ask for, and that is in the fifteen days' notice for judgments. I offer as a substitute for all these amendments a bill to that effect. I offer this, Mr. President, as a substitute for what has been presented here in the form of distinct bills, and ask that the assembly consider it :

“An Act to amend and re-enact section 3211 of the Code of Virginia, in regard to judgments at law on motion after fifteen days' notice.

"Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That Section 3211, Chapter 156, of the Code of 1887, be amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

"Section 3211. Remedy by judgment at law on motion after fifteen days' notice; when notice to be returned to the Clerk's office; provision to prevent discontinuance of motion.

'Any person entitled to recover by action, money on any contract, express or implied; damages for any wrong or injury; or specific personal property with damages for the detention thereof, may, on motion before any Court which would have jurisdiction in an action, obtain judgment for such money, damages, or specific personal property, after fifteen days' notice; which said notice shall clearly set forth in writing the nature of the demand, with a proper bill of particulars if the same would be required in an action, and shall be returned to the Clerk's office of such Court ten days before the commencement of the term; and the proceedings thereon shall in all other respects conform to the law and practice regulating pleadings in personal actions, except where it is otherwise specially provided. A motion under this section, which is docketed under section 3378, shall not be discontinued by reason of no order of continuance being entered in it from one day to another, or from term to term, but said notice

shall in all respects be treated as a formal declaration. This section shall not be construed as intended to effect the remedy by motion given by the preceding section."

Now, Mr. Chairman, by an amendment that does not contain over four lines, I think I give to the reformers everything they can wish for. They ought to be satisfied with that. If they don't choose to draw a declaration in debt, or assumpsit, or detinue, or trover, let them give the fifteen days' notice and move the Court for judgment. All that is now required is for the lawyer to state his case with sufficient clearness and the Court will sustain him. I move as a substitute for this report this amendment. We have practiced under the old system for forty years in actions on contracts, and I do not care what procedure you go under, you must state clearly and distinctly what is the grievance you suffer, and what the relief you want is. That is the entire object of pleading. After examining the Code Pleading with some care, I state that our form of procedure is infinitely more simple than the Code procedure. If any man thinks that Code procedure will save time and trouble and labor, he never made a greater mistake on earth. It will put two hundred lawyers in this State to work for years to learn the new procedure, and when they die they will not know as much of the new procedure as they do now of the old.

R. T. Barton, of Winchester (Judge Legh R. Watts, of Portsmouth, in the chair): Mr. Chairman,-I plead guilty to the authorship in the main of this report that has been so criticised, and I cannot sit by and let anybody else bear the blame. It is true I have not drawn all of these sections; the one most criticised was from the pen of my friend, Mr. Kean. Nearly all of them, however, were my suggestions originally.

Some two years ago I thought like my friend, Mr. Pettit; and law reform was to me as a red flag is to a bull, and I charged at it with as little discrimination. But more than a year ago I ascertained this fact, that instead of there being a strong feeling in favor of retaining our common law system in this State, there was a ground-swell that threatened to substitute something to stand like a stone wall, not to be scaled in the path of the attainment of true reform. That was my belief, after careful exami

nation, when the Senate passed a system of pleading which I think would not only have been a wall in the path of justice, but destruction, as long as it existed, to the ascertainment of truth and fair judgment in any Court in this State. Unless this body comes to the rescue and proposes some reasonable reform, that which passed the Senate and only failed in the House by not being reported from the committee in time, or something worse, will become the law in Virginia. That led me carefully to examine whether I was thinking from the prejudices of an early education and affection for the very name of these common law forms, which, as far as I could express any affection in such a matter, I really loved. I say I came to consider whether or not I was influenced by affection for these things derived by a constant study of them. I examined this question in fear and trembling. I soon became satisfied that the reason I had objected to law reform was that I had never examined into it, and had let prejudice take the place of information on this subject. I ascertained this: That twenty years ago in England the common-law system was abolished; that in every State of these United States, except the States of New Jersey, West Virginia and Virginia, this system had been modified and changed. In West Virginia to-day the Supreme Court has declared that in an action on a bond or sealed instrument, the Court should not be controlled by the names of things, but by the right of things; has declared that the province of a court is to pass on the merits of a case, and not waste time on mere questions of names of things or pleas; and that when courts sit and try cases, they must try whether A or B is entitled to the subject matter of the suit, and not whether he is suing for a spotted calf by detinue or bill in equity.

I said a year ago that I was a proselyte without zeal. If I know anything about anything on this earth, it is about the common law practice and pleading. It never offered any insurmountable obstacles in my way. I was not complaining. But I believed that I was obliged to consider this-that if we did not take steps in this direction somebody less able than we would do so; and one year ago, when I said before this Association what some of us remember, I found that my learned brother, Mr. Tucker, had reached the same conclusion that I had.

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I think this one form of action is wrong. We put that on to perfect the system already reported—a system merging law and equity. I find one difficulty in the way of its adoption which seems to me to be insurmountable, and that is the constitutional provision already referred to.

But I see that there is a strong feeling in Virginia in favor of changing our common law method of procedure, as strong a feeling as there is in favor of any doctrine. There is a demand from the people for this change. Every reform granted must be granted in the way of good, not of evil; and it was in that spirit of compromise and moderation, hoping to be able to present to the people these reforms that were demanded, and save to ourselves the names and shapes of these old common-law remedies, that this report was considered. My friend, I cannot vie with him in wit; it is very easy to get up and read a paper and say that this bill is occult, and that you cannot understand it; but it is hard to think that my friend from Fluvanna (Mr. Pettit) is doing justice to himself. To my mind, every line and every word and every sentence of each bill is so luminous and clear that he who runs may read. Has my friend given the matter full investigation? Is he not doing to-day what I did some years ago; has he not written and spoken altogether from his affections? I will prove it to him. He said that one clause of the bill repealed a section of the Code and another clause amended the repealed section. How did you study this amendment, my friend? If you had laid them side by side, you would have found that the repealed section was 3267 and the section amended was 3269, and that the printer put both 3267. You either did not do that or you did it so carelessly that you did not observe that there were two sections instead of one referred to. Falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus. If my friend did not do that, no matter how witty his criticisms, they are not worth the paper they are written on.

I will not occupy the attention of this Association very long ; I regret that I am obliged to be so much before it. The modern demand for reform is set forth in the English Code, in the Connecticut Code, and in the Massachusetts Code. I found the New York Code full of dangerous pitfalls. That State did not adopt a new Code, but grafted on some portions of the Code prepared