PREFACE. WHEN We undertook the present work our intention was to prepare a third edition of Tudor's Charitable Trusts. Before we had progressed far, however, we found that since 1862, when the last edition was published, the changes which had been effected in the law of charities by legislation and, to a less extent, by decided cases, rendered it impossible for us to proceed upon the lines usually adopted in preparing a new edition of an existing book. We therefore discarded our original plan and determined to employ Tudor's book merely as the foundation upon which to base a new work. The present treatise contains everything which was comprised in its predecessor, but it has been entirely re-written and re-arranged. We have at the same time enlarged its scope, and have aimed at rendering it a complete work on the law of charities and mortmain. In dealing with the statutory portions of the law, we have adopted the plan of printing the Acts in full, and of treating the cases bearing upon and the questions arising in respect of them, in notes to the various sections. Part II. of the book contains the Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act, 1888, and Part III. all the Acts and portions of Acts relating to the Charity Commission. Each of these parts is preceded by a historical introduction. Some miscellaneous Acts, bearing more or less directly on the main subject, are printed in Appendix I. In the notes to the Acts comprised in Part III. special attention has been directed to the practice of the Charity Commissioners, in the hope that the work may prove useful to Charity Trustees and others having dealings with the Commission. With this view, also, all the forms now in use at the Charity Commission are inserted in Appendix II., with a selection of schemes. Reports of two cases, hitherto unreported, are printed in Appendix III. The same Appendix also contains two notes, one on the meaning of inhabitants and parishioners, the other on directory powers. These are matters which are not sufficiently connected with the law of charities to permit of their being inserted in the text of the work, and they are dealt with at too great length to allow of their insertion as foot-notes. The Table of Cases contains references to all the Reports. Many Irish cases, and some Scotch, are included. It only remains for us to record our gratitude to Sir Henry Longley, K.C.B., Chief Charity Commissioner, to Mr. C. Archer Cook, Assistant Commissioner, and to Mr. Henry Vane and others on the staff of the Charity Commission, for assistance of inestimable benefit to us, most kindly and patiently rendered. 1, NEW SQUARE. 4, STONE BUILDINGS. November, 1889. L. S. B. W. I. C. |