230 Court of Chancery. [Sepr. 
a part of the duty of the court is to afford relief in cases in which the 
universality of the rules of the common law would otherwise be pro- 
ductive of individual injustice, the provision of remedies, in- emergencies 
altogether unprovided by law, is by far the most comprehensive subject 
of its jurisdiction. Without entering, then, very deeply into this difficult 
subject, we may just observe that: we doubt not, that a considerable im- 
provement might be effected by infusion into each branch of jurisdiction, 
of many of the principles which are now only recognized by the other. 
Thus, for instance, because the ownership derived through the medium 
of trusts was not in existence at the time the doctrine of the law became 
settled into a system, the law to this day persists in refusing to recognize 
their existence in its proceedings. Although the law admits, therefore, 
a legal settlement to be a bar of a widow’s dower, it refuses to acknow- 
ledge that equitable species of jointure which has been created through 
the instrumentality of a trust estate. Equity, however, acting upon a more 
liberal or more modernized policy, pronounces it good. The result is, that 
a widow may come into a court of law to sue for her dower, in the teeth of a 
jointure, which, in equity, would prevent her recovery, and the owner of the 
lands would be compelled to resort to the expense and trouble of a suit in 
equity to restrain her, because one branch of the law had refused to incor- 
porate into its doctrines principles to which their recognition in the other 
court, had proved that the necessities of society had given birth—Not 
that the refusal to notice the jointure is, in the case in question, attended 
with much practical mischief. In point of fact, the fear of being saddled 
with the costs of an injunction in equity, would be a “raison suffisante” to 
deter the dowress from prosecuting her legal remedies. We merely select 
the case as an apt illustration of the principle for which we are contending; 
but there are instances, and those pretty numerous, in which the refusal 
of the courts of common law to avail themselves of the more enlightened 
principles of equity serves only to add to that “ disease of infinite accu- 
mulation” under which the Court of Chancery is already well nigh 
sinking. Thus, in equity, as justice would naturally enough have 
dictated, a mortgagee, who, under a judgment obtained against his 
debtor, had been let into receipt of the rents of his land, would be held 
accountable for all that he had actually received during the time of his 
possession. At law, however, he would be liable to account according 
to the value at which the lands were extended to him. But the extended 
value is generally little more than a third of the real value ; consequently, 
at law, he would be liable only for about one-lhird of what he had 
received. And a mortgager, who did not like to put up with the loss of 
two-thirds of his annual rents, would have no other means of redress 
than by filing a bill in equity for an account. On the other hand, the 
reluctance of the Court of Chancery to deal with subjects more strictly 
of legal cognizance, even when that treatment is almost forced upon 
it in the course of its own operations, tends very largely to the general 
complication of legal proceedings. It often happens, for instance, 
to the court, in the course of a suit, to require a construction to 
be placed upon the language of a will. When the devise is of those 
trust or equitable interests which are the peculiar province of the 
court, it takes upon itself to determine it. Notwithstanding, how- 
ever, the rules of construction in the devises of legal or equitable 
interests, are pretty much the same in both courts, if the devise 
happen to be one of a legal interest, the chancellor constantly resigns its 
