THE STORY OF MY LEGAL EXAMINATION. 211 



" Why is notice of a prior incumbrance, &c., which ought 

 to be, but is not, registered in a County Registry, effectual to 

 observe priority ? " 



I tried to reduce this to principles of common sense. 

 After much thought, it struck me that perhaps if I commeiiced 

 the answer on paper it would come right of itself somehow. 

 So I began slowly on a large sheet and with a big B up in 



one corner, " Because " — yes, exactly, because wliy ? It 



looked like the answer to a riddle. I glanced round at my 

 neighbours ; they were all scribbling away at various rates, 

 heads down, well at their work. The examiner had his eye 

 on me, so I made a feint to be thinking deeply, and 

 scratched out " Because," slowly, and then wrote it again, in 

 a different character, on another sheet of paper. After a 

 few minutes 1 found that I had only been sketching fancy 

 portraits of little examiners with big heads all about the 

 page, with an occasional reminiscence of the lineaments of 

 liuller. Fobbes & Grumbury. This I felt wouldn't pass me, 

 so I made a bold jump to number seven, in consequence of 

 recognising the word " mortgage." 



'"''No. VII . — Why is a person taking a mortgage of pro- 

 perty and knowing that it was subject to an equitable 

 mortgage, postponed to the latter ? " 



It was necessary to write something, so I commenced by 

 saying that "By the word mortgage we must understand 



" this I scratched out, and on reconsideration began 



again thus : — " To enter into this subject as fully as it 

 deserves, we must reduce the technical question to the first 

 principles of common sense." There I stopped. It was no 



p 2 



