PRICE v. TYSON.—3 BLAND. 401

plaintiff really desires to be furnished with these minuter details
he will have no difficulty in explaining his purpose by a special
interrogatory. Alsager v. Johnson, 4 Ves. 217; Norway v. Rowe,
1 Meriv. 347; Beaumont v. Beaumont, 5 Mad. 51.

Hence it clearly appears, that a defendant, in making answer to
a bill, cannot be permitted, in any manner, to stray beyond the
confines of the case therein set forth; or to bring within those
limits any thing which can afford no degree of that information
asked for by the bill; or which cau have no influence upon the
case; or winch cannot be, in auj way, needful to him as a defence
against the claims and pretensions of the plaintiff. Upon these
principles, in the case now under consideration, I cannot pro-
nounce the various allegations of this answer, designated bj the
plaintiff as additional matter, to be entirely impertinent and foreign
from the subject in dispute.

It is admitted, that the defendants have fully and sufficiently
respouded to all that has been asked of them by the bill. But
the defendants having a right to set forth the matters on which
they mean to rely as a defence against the plaintiff's claim have
done so; and it is against those positions of the answer, that all
the plaintiff's objections have been directed. These defendants,
in the suit at law, have relied upon the plea of plene adminiztmvit;
and in their answer to this bill they do, in effect, shew how they
mean to sustain that plea. They here state, as the substance and
foundation of their defence, that they had reasonable ground to
presume, that the claim of the plaintiff had been satisfied, or
abandoned, arising from the length of time during which the dis-
pute had loitered or slumbered in the Court of law; from no de-
mand having been made upon them, after they had given notice
by publication according to law, which notice had been repeatedly
delivered into the house of the plaintiff's testator, who had for
many years resided near these defendants and their testator; and
before *a distribution of the surplus had been made among
his next of kin. Boydell v. Drummond, 11 East, 144. note; 405
Leeson v. Holt, 2 Com. Law Rep. 349; Wright v. Pulham, 18 Com.
Law Hep. 271. It is true, that these matters might, without danger
of inaccuracy, have been sufficiently set forth in a more condensed
manner and with fewer words; but I cannot consider them as
irrelevant, or say that they have been so very diffusively set forth
as to amount to impertinences which should be expunged.

But these defendants have exhibited, as a part of their answer,
a copy from the records of the Orphans' Court of their second
administration account, and of the distribution of the surplus of
their intestate's estate. This I hold to have been wholly useless
and unnecessary; because their administration accounts, or the
mode in which they had administered the estate of their intestate,
was in no way questioned, or called for by the bill; nor were any
26 3 B.