HARVARD

LAW REVIEW. VOL. X. OCTOBER 26, I896. NO. 3. NEW-FASHIONED RECEIVERSHIPS. IN the course of the growth of" that system of justice which was administered by the High Court of Chancery in England in the exercise of its extraordinary jurisdiction," ^ commonly called Equity, a system adopted in this country, and substantially, if not in form, in all our States, and covering three broad heads of jurisdiction, — equitable titles, equitable rights, and equitable remedies, — we find, under the last title, the preventive remedy of the appointment of receivers, in close category with bills quia timet and writs of ne exeat and of siipplicdvit? It is one of the very oldest remedies in the Court of Chancery. The jurisdiction is perfectly familiar and altogether unquestioned. An approved definition of a receiver is this : An indifferent per- son between the parties, appointed by the court to collect and receive the rents, issues, and profits of land, or the produce of real estate, or other things in question, pending the suit, which it does not seem reasonable to the court that either party should do, or where a party is incompetent to do so, as in the case of an infant.^ The rhetoric of this .definition certainly leaves much to be de- sired, but we may not look for better, to our professional discredit it must be said. The definition is gleaned and made up from many sources, and may be said to be accepted, if not entirely exhaustive. In addition, the receiver is not the agent or representative of either 1 Bispham, Princ. of Eq., i. ^ ji,id.^ 51. » /^/^/., ^j. 19