A Treatise on the Statute of Frauds Author:William Roberts Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: V a more abundant reason for the same camion arises out of the sta- tute of frauds, which has rendered certain contracts remediless at Maw without writing. Bu... more »t as it has long been too late to say that [ 11 J no such evidence shall be admitted, the judges have been called upon for the exercise of their soundest discretion in establishing practical criteria for its rejection or admission. The rule of dis- tinction commonly resorted to in these cases, turns upon the ten- dency of such evidence to contradict, vary, or add to, or only to explain and elucidate an instrument—a rule very good and intel- ligible in theory, and if not universally easy of application, yet fully adequate to the resolution of a great majority of the cases. Its application is well illustrated in the case of the King against the inhabitants of Laindon.(rf) The question in which case was, whether the written agreement should be considered as a contract of hiring and service, or a contract of apprenticeship, such agreement not having the word apprentice in it, but beginning with the following words : " I, J. M. do agree with J. C. to serve me three years to learn the business of a carpenter.' The court permitted parol evidence to show, that the pauper paid a premium to be taught the trade, and was not to be employed in any other work than that of a carpenter. For this parol evidence was not offered to contradict the written agreement, but to ascertain an independent fact, the instrument being equivocal without that explanation.(1) (i/) 8 T. R. 379. (4) This appears certainly to be the safest and solidest criterion upon which to determine the question of the admissibility of parol evidence in the case of wills. Other distinctions have been sometimes adverted to, which tend rather to set the question a...« less