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578 NEALE v. HAGTHROP.
verse has ever been relied upon as an answer. If it ever had been
so considered, it must have occurred in some of the numerous
cases of exceptions to answers, to hare insisted on it as such, yet
nothing of the kind appears. The whole range of adjudged cases
shew, that the extent and compass as well as the sufficiency of the
answer, as whether it is as frank as it ought to be, or whether it
covers the whole or only a part of the bill, are to be ascertained from
the body of the answer itself; and, not from the formal introduction,
or the formal general traverse, or conclusion of it. But in this case
the usual general traverse, denying the truth of all the unanswered
allegations of the bill, has not been added by way of conclusion to
any of the answers.
The late Chancellor HANSON is, however, reported to have said,
that 'no person acquainted with the laws, or rules, or practice of
this court, would conceive it the meaning of the Chancellor, that
whatever matter stated in a bill is not denied, must be considered
as admitted. No! if interrogatories stated in a bill are not an-
swered, the complainant has a right to except to the answer; and,
if the interrogatories are proper, the defendant will be compelled to
answer plainly, fully, and explicitly. If then any material matter,
charged in the complainant's bill, has been neither denied nor
admitted by the answer, it stands on the hearing of the cause for
nought. This assuredly every lawyer will admit. ' (w)
But to the latter part of what is here said I have found myself
unable to assent; and, therefore, I deemed it a respect due to the
memory of my predecessor to set down the authorities and reasons
which have led me to a different conclusion. From all that has
been said upon the subject, it appears to be agreed on all hands,
that the plaintiff, being entitled to an answer to each material alle-
gation of his bill, may except to an answer which omits to respond
to any of them; that, in England and Virginia, the plaintiff, by a
certain prescribed mode of proceeding, may have the unanswered
allegations taken for true; but, if he omits to take that course, for
that purpose, and goes to hearing, he must then prove the truth of
the unanswered allegations, or they will be disregarded; that, ac-
cording to Chancellor HANSON, the unanswered allegations stand
oft the hearing of the case for nought; and, that in my opinion
(w) Hopkins v. Stump, 2 H. & J, 304.
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