Another form of expression, peculiar to our language, is the _participial noun_, a word derived from a verb, and having the properties, both of a verb and a noun; as, "I heard of _his acquiring_ a large estate." _Acquiring_ here expresses the _act done_, the acquisition; yet governs the following objective case, _estate_. When a noun precedes the participle, it takes the sign of the possessive, "I heard of a _man's acquiring_ an estate." This is the genuin English idiom; and yet modern writers very improperly omit the sign of the possessive, as, I heard of a _man acquiring_ an estate. This omission often changes the sense of the phrase or leaves it ambiguous. The omission of the sign of the possessive in the following example is a very great fault. "Of a general or public act, the courts of law are bound to take notice judicially and _ex officio_, without the _statute being_ particularly pleaded."----Blackstone Comment. vol. 1. p. 86. The preposition _without_ here governs the phrase following, which might otherwise be properly arranged thus, without _the particular pleading of the statute_, or without _pleading the statute particularly_. But as the sentence stands, there is nothing to show the true construction, or how the sentence may be resolved: _Being_ and _pleaded_ both stand as participles; whereas the construction requires that they should be considered as standing for a noun; for _without_ does not govern _statute_; _without the statute_, is not the meaning of the writer. But it governs _pleading_, or refers immediately to that idea or union of ideas, expressed by _being particularly pleaded_. As these last words represent a noun, which is immediately governed by the preposition, _without_, the word _statute_ should have the sign of the possessive, as much as any word in the genitive case, _without the statute's being particularly pleaded_; that is, without the particular pleading _of the statute_ by the parties; for in order to make grammar or sense, _statute_ must be in the possessive. To confirm these remarks, I would just add, that when we substitute a pronoun in such cases, we always use the possessive case. Suppose the word _statute_ had been previously used, in the sentence; the writer then would have used the pronoun in the close of the sentence, thus; "without _its_ being particularly pleaded;" and I presume that no person will contend for the propriety of, "without _it_ being pleaded."