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NEALE v. HAGTHROP. 579
all material allegations of the bill, as to which the answer is entirely
silent, are, on the hearing, to be taken pro confesso, (x)
A fifth general rule is, that where an answer, in the body of it,
purports to be an answer to the whole bill, but the respondent
declares, that he is entirely ignorant of the matters contained in
the bill, and leaves the plaintiff to make out the best case he can,
or any language to that effect; and the plaintiff files a general
replication, all the allegations of the bill are thus denied and put
in issue; and, consequently, all of them must be proved at the
hearing against a defendant who has thus answered, (y)
This, in England, is said to be the usual form of the answer
of the Attorney-General; and no exception can be taken to such
answer, nor, indeed, to any answer of the Attorney-General, (z)
The same form and rule prevails here where the Attorney-General
appears for the State. This also is, commonly, the form of the
answer of an infant, or person non compos mentis, who answers by
his guardian or committee. And, by a long established practice,
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(z) In the case of Warfield v. Gambrill, 1 G. & J, 510, it has been since laid down
by the Court of Appeals, that 'supposing there is no denial of title in the answer,
and that the material allegation in the bill, the seisin of the complainant is unan-
swered, this is clearly no admission of any unanswered fact. ' Chancellor Hanson, 2
H. & J. 301, says, if any material matter charged in the complainant's bill, has been
neither denied nor admitted by the answers, it stands on the hearing of the cause for
nought; and in 6 Crunch, 51, Young v. Grundy, Ch, 5. Marshall, in delivering the
opinion of the court says, 'that if the answer neither admits nor denies the allega-
tions of the bill, they must be proved upon the final hearing. Upon a question of dis-
solution of an injunction, they are to be taken as true. ' 'A respondent submitting to
answer must answer fully, but if the answer be defective, and insufficient to meet
the allegations and interrogatories of the bill, the complainant, desiring a fuller re-
sponse, must except to the answer. If he do not, he cannot rely on the silence of
the respondent in relation to any material allegation, but must prove it. '
Whence it would seem that a new rule has been thus laid down, differing, in some
respects, from any spoken of in the text.
On what authority this cited dictum of Chief Justice Marshall was founded does
not distinctly appear from the case as reported in 6 Cranch, 51. It certainly does
not entirely accord with any of the above mentioned English or Virginia adjudications,
and still less with the controverted decision of Chancellor Hanson, as reported in 2
H. &. J. 301. But as an appeal lies in Virginia from an interlocutory order dissolving
an injunction, 5 Rand, 332, it is clear, that the judgment of the court on the princi-
pal matter in the case of Young v. Grundy, declaring, that no such appeal would lie
in that case, although it came, most probably, from the Virginia section of the District
of Columbia, must have been founded on the act of Congress, 24 September, 1789,
ch. 20, s. 22, which declares, that appeals shall be allowed only from final decrees
and judgments.
(y) Potter v. Potter, 1 Ves. 274; Amhurst v. King, 1 Cond. Chan. Rep. 407. —
{z) 2 Mud, Chan. Pra. 335.
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