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A GUIDE

ΤΟ

THE LAWS OF ENGLAND.

AFFECTING

ROMAN CATHOLICS.
CATHOLICS.

BY

THOMAS CHISHOLME ANSTEY, ESQ.

OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW.

In omnibus quidem, maxime tamen in Jure, æquitas spectanda sit.

Dig. Lib. 1. tit. xvij. 89.

LONDON:

V. & R. STEVENS AND G. S. NORTON,
Law Booksellers and Publishers,

(Successors to the late J. & W. T. CLARKE, of Portugal Street,)
26 AND 39, BELL YARD, LINCOLN'S INN:

AND A. MILLIKEN, DUBLIN.

MDCCCXLII.

LONDON:

WILLIAM STEVENS, PRINTER, BELL YARD,

TEMPLE BAR.

PREFACE.

In offering this Treatise to the notice of the Profession, the Author feels himself called upon to say a few words in explanation. He is far from imagining himself very competent to discharge the task he has attempted. Yet, when he considers that up to the present day there has appeared not a single work on this not unimportant subject, he ventures to hope that even this compilation may be found of service. It was the want under which he personally laboured of the means of informing himself upon the present state of the law relating to the Roman Catholic body in Britain and its colonies, that first led the Author to undertake, for his own benefit, those inquiries, the results of which he now presumes to lay before the public. In doing so, he is quite conscious of the many imperfections which are very likely to abound in a work of the first impression. But if he shall have succeeded in facilitating the further researches of more able and learned inquirers than himself, and of clearing their path of some of those embarrassments which he has found upon his own, the Author's success will have been quite equal to his expectations.

As far as the Author is aware, he has endeavoured never to make use of the industry of other compilers without acknowledgment. For the concluding Chapter upon Colonies, he is especially responsible. The silence

of Mr. Justice Story, Mr. Burge, and other learned commentators, upon this interesting point in the conflicts of imperial with local laws, has been frequently lamented by those to whom some information would have been particularly desirable.

Where so much doubt exists as to the present applicability of certain ancient statutes and supposed legal maxims, the Author feels every confidence in craving, as he does, the indulgence of his readers for the views he has occasionally expressed. He more especially refers to the Chapters on Charities.

It has been a rule with him to confine his work, as much as possible, to the laws peculiarly, and eo nomine, affecting the Roman Catholics. Circumstances have occasionally created exceptions to this rule. To some laws nonconformists of every denomination are equally subject. In other instances, and particularly in that of the law of Charities, it was difficult to adhere to the rule without incurring the hazard of not being sufficiently understood. Perhaps he has acted wisely in deserving the censure of prolixity, rather than the selfreproach of the poet :

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Brevis esse laboro ;-
Obscurus fio.-

1, Plowden Buildings, Temple,

May 3rd, 1842.

T. C. A.

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