OUR LITERARY COLUMN.

success.

the “ Devil's Owo” resounds in that part of Stone-buildings where once the “Six Clerks” pursued their peaceful avocations, copied their Chancery pleadinge, and fled their orders. To one of these clerks—a Mr. Lally-young Romilly was articled. For £2000 you could buy the office then, and it was a pretty lucrative one. Of the Bar as a career Romilly had not begun to dream, but the work of the Six Clerks "

naturally turned bis thoughts in that direction, and ho deter. mined to try his chances there, despite the advice of candid friends who thought bis " diffidence" would prove an unsurmouotable bar to

Bebold him, then, at twenty-one, established in pleasant chambers at Gray's-ion with an uninterrupted view, save for one row of bouses, stretobing away to Highgato and Hampstead, and setting himself resolutely to the painful study of the law, ay pupil of a certain Mr. Spranger of the Chancery Bar. Here is a history of a day : “At six o'olook or sooper I rise, go into the cold bath, walk to Islington to drink a cbaly beate water (from which I have found great benefit), return and write or read till ten; then dress aod go to Mr. Spranger's, where I study till three ; dine in Frith-street (his married brother's house), and afterwards return to Mr. Spranger til: nine, or else stay in Frith.street and read with my brother and Jane." Pupilage in chambers of this kind was then the only preparation for the Bar. If a law student wanted anything more he had to do it for himself, as Blackstone has told us. In this way of self-help young Romilly formed little society. of four for arguing points of law upon questions which the members suggested in turn. One argued on each side as counsel ; the other two acted the part of judges and were obliged to give at length the reasons for their deo isione, “an exercise,” he adds, "which was certainly very useful to us all. Besides these "informal moots," he cultivated the art of speaking atter a novel fashion. Instead of resorting to any of the debating societies, “I adopted,” he says, “a very useful expedient wbich I found suggested in Quintilian, that of expressing to myself, in the best language I could, whatever I had been reading; of usiog the arguments I had met with in Tacitus or Livy, and making with them speeches of my own, not uttered aloud, but composed and existing only in thought. Oocasionally, too, I attended the two Houses of Parliament, and used myeelf to recito in thought, or to answer the speeches I had heard there.”

&

STRIKING FIGURES IN THE LEGAL HISTORY

OF ENGLAND.

Sir Samuel ROMILLY. Fancy the newspaper hubbub if the present Arobbisbop of Canterbury was burnt at the stake at Oxford for unortbodox views! Fancy it if Parliament were to pags a special retrospective Act to boil alive a 'bishop's cook for having poisoned the soup of the family! Fancy it if the present Lord Chancellor were to assist with his own hands in rackiog an old clergyman to extort a confession of supposed guilt ! Fancy it if a servant girl were hanged for stealing a bit of ribbon out of her mistress's drawer! Yet all these things and many more quite as startling and shocking have happened in the "good old times,” and our ancestors accepted them seemingly with perfect equanimity 88, 80 to speak, in the ordinary couree of business. So much does custom dull our sensibility! Then comes & qnickened conscience, a questioning intelligence, a reforming spirit, and aske with righteous indigoation why we suffer this or that scandal to our civilisation. Such a one was Sir Samuel Romilly, to whose humanity and good senso we owe mainly the great amelioration wbich the last hundred years have witnessed in our barbarous criminal code** written in blood” as he justly eays—the adoption of new methods in dealing with offenders, and a new ideal of regeneration rather than retribution.

Huguenot Origin-Sorrows of Childhood. Sir Samuel Romilly's grandfather was a French Huguenot who, for conscience sake, on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, surrondered his (amily estate at Montpelier in the south of France and settled in England that he might worship God after his own fashion. His grandson used to bless the tyranny of Louis XIV. wbiob had made bim an English man. His son, Peter Romilly-Sir Samuel Romilly's father-put to it to make a living in a strange land, started as a jeweller in Broad-street in the City of London, and, having the fine artistic taste of a Frenchman, made a good deal of money out o: the business. Ho bad a large family, but three alone survived - Thomas, Samuel, and Catherine--and the lives of these he only saved, so he believed, by taking "country" lodgings for them in the Maryle. bone-road ! Little Sam, the younger of the two boye, was one of

“Tho souls by nature pito bed too bigb."overflowing with sensibility and imagination. It is pathetic to read of his affectionate anxiety about his father. The little boy would be awake night after night, trembling for his father's safety, till he heard his koook at the door-irembling lest his father should grow old and die ; and these were pot his only cares. Charles Lamb has told us in his Witobes and Other Night Fears how a certain picture in the family Bible representing the Witch of Endor raising Samuel haunted his childish imagination. It was the same with little Romilly ; only in his case it was the piotures in Foxe's Book of Martyrs and the Nowgato Calendar which visited bis couch in dreams and made night hideous. Yet who can say that these very scenes from Foxe's Book of Martyrs and Stories of Newgate which terrorised his childhood may not have been the means of inspiring him with that love of civil and religious liberty and zeal for the reform of our criminal law which have enshrined his name among the benefactors of the race ? His echool experience told in the same direction. The master was a bad-tem pered man who thought "blows and stripes the only genuino promoters of goodness and incentives to virtue." Romilly, young as he was, knew better. Like Dr. Joboson, he felt that though severity might be the way to “govern boys," it was not the way to mend them," and what was true of boys was true of men

Poetry and the Counting-house. Like many young men of ardent temper, Romilly as he grew up had poetio aspirations and a stroog bias towards literature, and the idea of enter og bis father's counting house was as distasteful to him ss it was to the romantic soul of youog Mr. Francis Osbaldistone in Rob Roy or to Alan Fsirford in Rodgauntlet. Bat Romilly bad Dot, like Soott's heroes, the advantage of a sarcastio parent to ridicule their " wantonings with the muse"; on the contrary, wbat be calls his " feeble verses and puerile images were received with the most Hattering applause in the family circle. He had made, among other things, some traublations of Virgil, and be adds: “ I remember read. ing with triumph first Dryden's translation and then my own to my good.natured relations, who concurred with me in thinking that I Lad left poor Dryden at a most humiliating distance.” This selfadmiration soon abated-Romilly was too modest and sensible a young man to indulge it long—but his course of self-culture continued. He read and re-read all the best Latin writers ; be studied English literature and history diligently, and formed bis style on the best models–Addison and Swit, Bolinbroke, Robertson, and Home. Nor were the graces wanting. Two pretty and accomplished cousinsorphans-had come to live at his fatber's small house in the Marylebone-road, and they made the household a very bright and happy one with walks and rides in the morning, reading aloud, music and dancing in the evenings. Agreeable as this sort of life was, a career bad to be chosen, and it camo about in this way.

The “ Sir Clerks in Chancery" and the Bar. There existed at that time an institution known as the “ Six Clerks ia Chancery.” Today the clang of arms and the martial tramp of

.

Politics - The Coming Revolulion in France. From his letters to his brother in-law, Roden-a Protestant minister living at Geneva—it is clear that be was already taking a keen and intelligent interest in the politics of the time ; and well he might, for it was an age of great questions and great Parliamentary oratorsof Pitt and For (those “ mighty opposites''), of Barke and Sheridan, of Mansfield and Erskine :

“ With more than human power endowed,

How far they soared above the crowd !
Theire was no oommon party race,
Jostling by dark intrigue for place :
Beneath each banner proud to stand,

Looked up the coblest in the land ”and Romilly had no doubt under wbicb bandor to range himself. The priociples of the French Revolution were then “in the air," and Romilly, like many ardent and generous young men of the timelike Wordsworth and Coleridge, Southey and Barns and Benthamhailed the rising light :

" When France in wrath her giant limbs upreared,

And with an oath which sbook earth, sky, and sea,

Stamped her strong foot and said • I will be free.' “I was among those," says Romilly, “who in the early stages of the Revolution entertained the most sanguine expectations of the bappy effects which were to result from it." " It was the most glorious event and the bappiest for mankind that had ever taken place since human affairs had been recorded." The course of events 8000 sobered him. Instead of the Millennium, bebold the Reign of Terror and Pande. mopium let loose !

Meanwhile, however, in 1780, that fanatical nobleman Lord George Gordon at the bead of his No Popery mob was causing

“Red ruin and the breaking up of laws ” in London. Fortwo nights it had the appearance of a city taken by storm. It behoved all good citizens to rally to the cause of law and order, and Romilly, though in delicate health, was not wanting. For a whole night be under armo and stood sentinel for several hours at the gateway of the loo leading into Holborn, the number of Catholic members at Gray's-inn making that Ion peculiarly obnoxious to the rioters.

The excitement and strain of the Gordon riots brought on an illness and during his convalesence, he taught himself Italian and was soon deep in Machiavelli and Beccaria.

Our Criminal Code-Madan on " Executive Justice." The latter name is worth noting, because it was from Beccaria that Romilly drew his inspiration as a oriminal law reformer. An oppor. tunity soon occurred for breaking a lance in the cause. A year or two after he bad been called to the Bar-in 1786—"one G. M. Madan published a book or pamphlet called Thoughts on Executive Justice. The gist of this precious pamphlet was that our admirable criminal law was not enforced as strictly as it ought to be. A stranger lookir g at our pedal code might think us, said the writer, the best proteected pation in the world. So far from that, highway robberies threaten the traveller by night and by day; the larking footpad lies like a

was

bis

dangerous adder in our roads and streets; ibe horrid burglar, like an evil spirit, haunts our dwellings, making night hideous.' The farmer loses his sheep from the fold, the ox from the stall, and all sorts of people their horges from their fields and even from their stables, and those are but a part of that dreadful catalogue of offepoes with which every Old Bailey and every assize calendar is filled.” What was the remedy? It was that the judges should remember they did not bear the sword in vain, but do their duty as the mioisters of justice, and see tbat the law was carried into effect. The pamphlet was widely read and naturally had its influences on judges and ministers, though Lord Ellenborough, with his usual vehemenco, denied its influence. If so, it is a curious coincidence that whereas in the year before the pamphlet was published (1783) the executions numbered only fifty.one, in the year after publication (1785) they had risen to ninety-seven-nearly doubled in fact. In that year (1785) Romilly published a counterblast, showing forcibly that it was the very severity of the law which was defeating itself. Probably there was no other country in the world, he observed, in which so many and so great a variety of human actions are punished with loss of life as Eogland. They numbered no less than 160.

This severity of the criminal law had in the old times been very much mitigated by * benefit of clergy." When that comfortable doctrine was abolished, the shocking barbarity of making death the penalty for such things as picking a pooket for a shilling, shoplifting to ihe value of 58., or stealing in a private dwelling-house to the value of 40s., foroed itself on the minds of thinking men, and the growing bumanity of the age refused to give effect to the law. Persons whose property had boon stolen would not 'prosecute, witnesses withheld the truth, juries would not convict. For example, one Elizabeth Hobbs was indicted for stealing in a dwelling, house “one broad piece, two guineas, two half-guineas, and forty-four sbillings in money. Sbo confessed, and the jury found her guilty, but found that the money stolen was worth only 398. Mary Braid was indicted for stealing certain pieces of lace in a dwelling.house. It was proved that she had offered to sell the lace for twelve guineas and had refused eight guineas. The jury found her guilty, but found that the lace was worth only 393. ! The result of verdicts like these was that for some time before the date of Romilly's reply to Madan only one-sixth of the persons sentenced to death had actually been executed (hinc illæ lachrymæ of the Draconian Madan), and this was taking into calculation crimes the most atrocious and the most dangerous to society-murders, rapes, burning of houses, coiding, forgeries, and attempts to commit murder. Leaving those out, only about one in twenty of those convicted on capital charges was executed. Such a state of things affords & striking illustration of how impotent law becomes when it is no longer in accordance with national sentiment.

man

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thropist. Not for ambition's sake. Never was man freer from that taint than Romilly, or more worthy to be numbered among those

“Who care not to be great

But as they serve or save the State." Patriæ impendere vitam

motto. This freedom from self-seeking and purity of aim—this splendid disinterestedness-i8 Romilly's chief charm, and makes bis career a bright example to all public men. Here is his amulet, early adopted, against disappointment:-

“I have taught myself,” he says, & very useful lesson of practical philosophy, in order to make myeelf easy in any situation, which is pot to suffer my happiness to depend upon my success.

Should my wishes be gratified, I promise to employ all the talents and all the authority I may acquire for the public good. Should I fail in my pursuit, I console myself with thinking that the humblest situation of life has its duties, which one must feel a satisfaction in discharging ; that at least my conscience will bear me the pleasing testimony of having intended well ; and that, after all, true happiness is much less likely to be found in the high walks of ambition than in the secretum iter et fallentis semita vitæ.

"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." He, like others at this time-1786. 1790—was anxiously watobiog the trend of events in France. Mirabeau, Dumont, Talley rand, and others who figured on the French stage, were bis intimate friends, and he made several visits to Paris to see how things were going.' “ What struck me as most remarkable " he says, “in the dispositions of the people that I saw was the great desire that everybody had to act a great part, and the jealousy which, in consequence of this, was entertained of those who were really eminent. It seemed as if all persons, from the highest to the lowest, whether deputies themselves, declaimers in the Palais Royal, orators in the coffee-houses, spectators in the gallery, or the populace about the door, looked upon themselves individually as of great consequence in the Revolution. The who kept the hotel at which I lodged at Paris, a certain M. Villars, was a private in the National Guard. Upon my retui ning home on the day of the benediction of their colours at Notre Dame and telling him that I had been present at the ceremony, he said : •You faw me, sir?' I was obliged to say that really I had not. He said : • Is that possible, sir ? You did not see me! Why, I was in one of the front ranks-all Paris

me.' What he spoke was felt by thousande. The most important transactions were as nothing but as they had relation to the figure which each little self-conceited hero acted in them. To attract the attention of all Paris or of all France was often the motive of conduct in matters which were attended with most momentous consequences."

Darker and darker as the days went on grew the horizon in France, and deeper and deeper-As the tragic drama unfolded itself with tumbril and guillotine-the despair of those who, like Romilly, had hoped for a new heaven and a new earth in France. “ One might as well,” he exolaims after the massacres of September, “one might au well think of establishing a republic of tigers in some forest in Africa as of maintaining a free government among such monsters. Who would bave conceived that at the close of the eighteenth century we should see in the most civilised country in Europe all the horrors of political proscription and of religious persecution combined ?"

Some years afterwards, when the storm had blown over and Romilly again visited Paris, Tallegrand told him that in his opinion nothing could restore good morals and order in the country but, ae he expressed it, “ La roue [breaking on the wheel) et la religion de nos ancêtres.". He knew, he added, that the English did not think 80; but they knew nothing of the people.

The natural sequence in the cycle of political change which Aristotle notes-mob rule (@xokparia) Quoceeded by tyranny-bad by this time begun. " A more aboulute despotism than that which now exists here," writes Romilly, “ France has never experienced. Louis XIV. was never so independent of public opinion as Buonaparte is.” So muob for “Liberty " ! Equality is amusingly illustrated by an incident recorded in Romilly's journal

“Went after dinner to the opera. We were going the next day into the country, and, to give our horses some rest, we had a hackney coach brought to take us home from the opera. The consequence of this was that, though we quitted our box before the last dance was over, we were obliged to wait till almost everybody else was gone before we could get away. Every gentleman's carriage (00 matter in what order they stood) bad precedence over our contemptible hackney coach ; and we waited three-quarters of an hour while the numerouscarriages of the politer part of the audience drove up and carried off their company. I could not but think this a siogular order of police, enforced as it is by dragoons and foot soldiers, in a city where it is impossible to stir a step without seeing “ Equality” displayed upon some public building or at the corner of a street in conspicuous characters"; and, he might have added, where a few years before the mob had been shrieking, " À bas les aristocrats !”

| Criminal Law Reform, Poultry Stealing, and Judicial Discretion.

Romilly set himself to bring back our criminal law to the standard of public opinion and average sentiment by itting the punishment to the crime. This is bis peculiar title to remembrance. But it was a labour of Sisyphus. He had to roll the beavy stone of reform up a bill of prejudice. His old clerk told him attorneys would never think well of any man who was troubling his head about reformiog abuses when he ought to be profitiog by them. Lord Ellenborough and Lord Eldon thought any relaxation of the law would be dangerous. Wilkes defended the severity of the criminal law because it acoustomed men to a contempt of death. Others said, “Keep death as the maximum penalty, ut metus ad omnes perveniat, and leave it to the judges to relax it according to the circumstances, ut pana ad paucos perveniat.” Such was the specious argument. Romilly points out by an example bow unfair a law resting on such discretion might become with the different views entertained by the judges. Not many years ago, he saye, upon the Norfolk Circuit a larceny was committed by two men in a poultry yard, but only one of them was apprebended; the other, having escaped into a distant part of the county, bad eluded all pursuit. At the next assizes the apprehended thief was tried and convicted, but Lord Loughborough, before whom he was tried, thinking the offence a very slight one, Bentenced him only to a few months imprisonment. The news of this sentence having reached the accomplice in his retreat, he immediately returned and surrendered himself to take bis trial at the next assizes ; but, unfortunately for the prisoner, it was a different judge wbo presided, and, still more unfortunately, Mr. Justice Gould, who happened to be the judge, though of a very mild and indulgent disposition, bad observed, or thought he had observed, that men who set out with stealing fowls generally end by committing the most atrocious crimes, and, building a sort of system upon this observation, bad made it a rule to punish this offence with very great severity, aod he acccordingly, to the very great astoniement of this unbappy man, sentenced him to be transported. While one was taking bis departure for Botany Bav, the term of the other's imprisonment bad expired. What must have been the notions which that little public who witnessed and compared these two examples formed of our system of criminal jurisprudence !"

It was only by such pamphlets and paper warfare that Romilly could at this time influence opinion in favour of his reforme. Не had not yet got a seat in Parliament, and was engrossed with his professional practice, which was every day increasing ; much more.' he modestly says, " than I could have any reason to expect.”

In fact, he almost grudges at his success in the insipid and uninteresting occupations to which," he saye, “ I am every day enslaved”-law, be it remembered, was then at its most technical—and yearned for a stage on which he might play the nobler röle of law reformer and pbilan.

An Apostle of Humanitarianism. Such is life-a true Lampadephoria, Romilly had dropped out of the race, but he had handed on the torch ; and if there is one to whom more than another belongs the honour of being not only a law reformer, but a pioneer of that humanitarianism-the grandest note of the nineteenth century-which has given and is giving us our splendid social legislation, it is the good and great Sir Samuel Romilly.

E. M.

LAW LIBRARY.

was

Year Books of the Reign of King Edward III. Year 20.

(Second Part). Edited and translated by LUKE Owen PIKE,

M.A., Barrister-at-law. London: H.M. Stationery Office. The learned editor announces in his introduction that, with the exception of a glossary of French as spoken in England before 1303, this is the last voiume of the series, and completes the work of filling gaps in the old editions between the tenth and seventeenth and the eighteenth and twenty-first years of Edward III. As the reports of the seventeenth and eighteenth years have also been reissued, the series in fifteen volumes is therefore complete from the eleventh to the twentieth year inclusive. In reading Mr. Pike's review, one realises the value and interest attaching to the work in which he has taken so notable a part and has made more than one important discovery. The MS. of this volume was ready in May 1908, and the delay in publishing has been due to changes in the Government printing department: (see statement at annual meeting of the Selden Society, 130 L. T. Jour. 539).

:

to a wide extent of country. “To that object it is that I owe,” says R milly, “all the real bappiness of my life. In the year 1796 I made a visit to Bowood. My dear Anne, who had been staying there some weeks with her father and her sisters, was about to leave it. The day fixed for their departure was the eve of that on which I arrived, and, if nothing had occurred to disappoint their purpose, I never ehould have seen her. But it happened that on the preceding day she was one of an equestrian party which was made to visit this curious object. She overheated herself by her ride; a violent cold and pain in the face was the consequence. Her father found it indispensably necessary to defer bis journey for several days, and in the m-antime I arrived. I saw in hor the most beautiful and accomplished creature tbat ever blest the sight and understanding of mad. A most intelligent mind, an uncommonly correct judgment, a lively imagination, a cheerful disposition, a noble and generous way of thinking. an elevation and heroism of character, and a warmth and tenderness of affection such as is rarely found even in her sex were among ber extraordinary endowments. I was captivated alike by the beauties of her person and the charms of her mind. A mutual attachment was formed between us, and at the end of little more than a year consecrated by marriage. All the bappiness I have known in her beloved society; all the many and exquisite enjoyments which my dear children have afforded me. even my extraordinary success in my profession, the labours of which, if my life had not been so cheered and exhilarated, I never could have undergone ”-all this he owed to his incomparable Ande. Outwardly reserved and cold in demeanour, Romilly bad in reality the warmest heart and the most generous emotions ; 80 sayo Scarlett, the great ad pocate-afterwards Lord Abinger-who know him well, and used to take long walks with bim daily after the court rose, as it did in those haloyon days, at two o'clock. Io mixed society he was more of a listener than a talker. Literary talk was what he loved. As a speaker he was at times inclined to be de. clamatory, but it was by his logio rather than his rhetoric that he conquered. He was specially good at exposing sophistry, and this faculty made him always happy-and often terrible—in reply.

“A Potent Voice in Parliament.” In 1800 he became a K.C., and was soon the recognised leader of the Chancery Bar. It may be thought strange that so successful a lawyer -one, too, 80 full of reforming ardour-should not earlier have essayed to get into Parliament. More than once Lord Lansdowne had preseed a seat upon him—the Prince Regent bimself bad offered him one ; but Romilly had declined both. He felt that as nominee of the owner of a pocket borough he could not enjoy the independence which he wanted if he entered Parliament, and-paradoxical as it may appear-be actually preferred to buy a constitutency for a sum of cash, reconciling his conscience to this “detestable transaction, as he calls it, by the argument that the whole representative system of the country was rotten to the core, as indeed it was. Lawyers often fail in the House of Commons to justify their reputation. Romilly enhanced bis. His easy and flowing elocution, set off by a tall and graceful figure, bis weli-modulated voice, and, above all, bis evident earnestpees and sincerity of purpose, at once conciliated the good will of the House, and when Fox in 1805 formed bis Ministry of All the Talenta”

and Erskine was made Chancellor, Romilly, far better fitted for the Woolsack than Erskine, became Solicitor-General. Now was his opportunity as a law reformer, but he knew too well the strength of the opposition he had to encounter to attempt beröic reforms or to proceed otherwise than gradatim et pedetentim. He began by trying to rectily a gross anomaly in the administration of a ssets that is, he brought in a Bill to make the freehold property of persons dying indebted assets for payment of their simple contract debts. But Parliament would oply pass it as limited to traders! He brought in a Bill to abolish the penalty of death for pocket-picking, and be Bucceeded. He brought in a Bill to abolish the penalty of death for shoplifting and for stealing in a private dwelling house to the amount of 59., and he failed. He tried to mitigate the inbuman flogging that went on in the army and navy, and again he failed. Such was the temper of the age ; driven for a time into reaction against all humanitarian legislation by the bideo 28 excesses of the revolution in France. What large schemes of reform he contemplated in law and procedure when he should become Chancellor may be seen in his diary.

The Final Tragedy. But his plans of_reform were not to be realised. In 1818 hje beloved wife died. Be shut himself up in his house in Russell-square and in a fit of delirium cut bis throat with a razor. Grief, iocon. solable, for the death of his wife and overwork-Wilberforce bad long remonstrated with him on “Sunday consultations”-acting on over-sensitive mind had brought about the tragedy

His death was felt as nothing short of a public calamity. Lord Eldon came into court next morning obviously much affected. As he took his seat he was struck by the sight of the vacant place at the Bai which Romilly was accustomed to occupy. His eyes filled with tears. “I cannot stay here,” he exclaimed, and, rising in great agitation, broke up the court.

To Napoleon, then fretting in exile at St. Helena, the deed appeared at once inexplicable and curiously characteristio of the Eoglish people. “The English character is superior to ours. Conceive Romilly, one of the leaders of a great party, committing suicide at fifty because he bad lost his wife. They are in everything more practical thao we are. They emigrate, they marry, they kill themselves with less indecision than we display in going to the opera.”

Select C'axes in the Star Chamber. Vol. 2. Edited by I. S.

LEADAM. London: Bernard Quaritch. This is the twenty-fifth volume of the Selden Society's publications, and gives us Star Chamber cases in the years 1509 to 1544. In a most comprehensive and able introduction Mr. Leadam discusses the composition of the celebrated court by statute and in practice, the statutes of 1.529 and 1539, and changes in forms of process and address. The select pleas include questions of copyhold, inclosure, maintenance, bondage, riot, forcible disseisin, engrossing corn, &c. There are indexes of subjects, persons, and places. An appendix contains various proclamations, cases in the Court of Requests, and other matters. A statement regarding this and the next volume will be found in the report of the Selden Society's annual meeting, 1:30 L. T. Jour. 539.

Annotated Civil Code of Japan. By J. E. DE BECKER, Solicitor.

Vol. 4. Butterworth. This volume contains Book V. of Mr. de Becker's admirable presentment of this interesting code. It is the Book of Succession, and deals in seven chapters with succession to house and property, acceptance and renunciation of succession, separation of property, failure of heirs, forms of wills, and legal portions. The arrangement of the work is clear and systematic, and it is beautifully printed in large type with ample margins. The index is exceptionally full.

Digest of the Local Government Case Law of 1910. By

* Nomos.” Vol. 1. The Local Government Review

Limited. This is a handy collection of cases conveniently arranged under seventeen headings, such as Contracts, Education, Motor-cars, Practice, Rating, and so on. The 358 reports have appeared in the legal section of the Local Government Review, but have been brought up to date and checked throughout. “ Nomos " says in his preface : "In the good old days, law reporting was a wellrecognised stepping-stone to the Bench, and a more meritorious one than mere subservience to a political party. Nowadays it seems to be the doorway to oblivion as far as practice in the courts is concerned.” Hence the pseudonym.

an

Public Companies. By B. O. BIRCH AN and FREDERICK C. G.

MORRIS.

Effingham Wilson. Tuis useful little book compresses into 11; pages the law and practice relating to the formation and totation of such joint

stock companies limited by shares as invite the public to subscribe for their capital. Although of small compass, all the essential features relativg to this matter are given both accurately and clearly, and promoters, directors, investors, and other persons connected with companies, as well as lawyers, will find the information therein contained of the greatest value.

2

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Russell's Chalkstream and Moorland. Smith, Elder, and Co., 15, Waterloo.place, s.W. Price 5.. net.

Gibson and Weldon's Intermediate Examination Digest. Sixth Edition. “Law Notes" Publishing Offices, 25 and 26, Chancery.lane, W.C. Price 169.; post free for cash 133, 5d.

Haycraft on Bills of Sale. Second Edition. Efingham Wilson, 54, Threadneedle-street. Price 23. 6d, net.

Gore-Browne and Jordan on Joint Stock Companies. Thirty-first Edition. Jordan and Sons Limited, 116 and 117, Chancery-lane, W.C. Price 78. 6d. pet.

Picken's Handbook to Stamp Duties. Sixteenth Edition. Waterlow and Sous Limited, London Wall. Price 23. 6d. net.

Mitchell on Science and the Criminal. Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons Limited, 1, Amon-corper, E.C. Price 68. net.

Alexander on the Administration of Justice in Criminal Matters. Cambridge University Press, Fetter-lane, E.C. Price 1s. Det.

LEGISLATION AND JURISPRUDENCE.

NEW EDITIONS. The third edition of Mr. Charles Beatty's handy little Guide to the Death Duties (Effingham Wilson) incorporates the changes effected by the Finance Act 1910. The author is a solicitor in the Estate Duty Office at Somerset House, and can therefore be thoroughly relied on for his knowledge.

The eighth edition of Innes' Digest of the Law of Easements (Stevens and Sons) is the work of Mr. Noel Leybourn Goddard, of the Middle Temple. The plan of the work has not been altered, but the text has been brought up to date and improved in many ways, while the index is quite new.

Students will be glad to know that Mr. Alfred Topham's treatise on Real Property (Butterworth) has entered on a second edition which includes a number of important recent decisions. Difficult passages bave been revised, and Mr. F. Porter Fausset, of the Inner Temple, supplies a set of test questions.

Messrs. Butterworth and Co. and Shaw and Sons have brought out a new (the sixteenth) edition of that well-known work Pratt and Mackenzie's Law of Highways, Mr. W. W. Mackenzie being alone responsible for the present issue. Since the publication of the last edition in 1905 there has been much fresh legislation on the subject matter of the work, and this, together with all the recent decisions of the courts, will be found incorporated in the new volume, which as it stands contains the whole of the law relating to highways, main roads, streets, and bridges. Mr. E. A. C. Lloyd has assisted Mr. Mackenzie in the preparation of parts of the text.

Recent legislation has rendered necessary a new edition of Alpe's Law of Stamp Duties, and Messrs. Jordan and Sons Limited have just published the twelfth edition, revised and amplified by Mr. Arthur B. Cane. This book is so well known to practitioners that it is only recessary to say that both in the way of statute and case law it has been brought well up to date, and contains the whole of the law on this difficult subject as it stood at the commencement of this year.

Mr. Charles Sweet has undertaken the preparation of the third edition of Challis' Real Property (Butterworth). The author's text and notes remain unaltered, the editor's additions and comments being placed in brackets. While dissenting from Mr. Challis in some cases, notably in regard to the true nature of incorporeal hereditaments, easements, New River shares, and titles of honour, Mr. Sweet ventures to support his views, in face of recent decisions to the contrary, on the question whether the rule against perpetuities applies to certain common law interests which were recognised as valid long before the rule was invented. The editor bas certainly a strong array of opinion on his side. He shows care in the whole work and a nice judgment in regard to a selection of recent cases.

The problems to be solved by the legislation, general and local, on the subject of lights on vehicles are in some measure alleviated by the extremely simple and inexpensive arrangement employed by Lord BREADALBANE. In essence it is merely a lamp, showing a red light bebiod, suspended by a hook from the axle. Lord BREADALBANE has used this device during two winters and has discovered that it is not only effeotive as indication of the presence of the vehicle, but it ie, moreover, quite safe for use on hay carts. This type of vebiclo is dangerous for its elow nods and there are admitted difficulties in the way of lighting it, and, furthermore, it is apt to pursue its course at a time of year and under conditions of darkness when it may be encountered by largo numbers of other travellers. The practioal system now ad vocated should be noted by all county council representatives, and, looking to the perils of the roads, steps should be taken towards making it compulsory for all such vehicles being marked by this simple and efficacious means.

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It is scarcely astonishing to find that the new by-laws being pressed for acceptanoe in Paddingtop bave entailed some considerable friction In this area there has been for eome little time a consumption dispensary, and it may probably be traoed to the zeal of this body that there should be proposed a by-law requiring overy lodger is a tenement house, except under special ci.cumstances, to open bis bed-room window for one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon, and to have the floor swept daily and wasbed once week. It is freely granted that were lodgers in tenement houses to adopt of their own volition such practices, their own health and that of neighbours might testify to their advantage, but, unless these by-laws are to be meco waste paper, it would appear necessary to appoint a number of new capitary officials and to incur a new form of inquisition by inspectors. It is not proposed, apparently, to extend these by-laws to the numerous blocks of flats in babited by richer individuale, nor to affect the resident of an ordinary house, and it is therefore a novel form of class legislation in London. The statement is made that something on these lines has been done in the provinces, and it is said that the Local Government Board is prepared to support by-laws of this nature. Mr. Burns in his legislation on town planning has gone a long way towards securing a higher standard of cleanliness and sanitation, and the present by.law is an outcomes alike of this legislation and of the experience of the Paddington dispensary for the prevention of consumption. There is now such a number of inspectors of one sort or another to whose visits the ordinary working man is liable that it is undesirable to add to them, or to the scope of modern inquisition.

Mr. H. B. Irving, the well-known actor and a keen student of criminology, has just completed, and hopes to publish before his departure for Australia on the 12th May, a volumo dealing with the trial of Franz Müller This volume will form the second of the new series of Noiable Eoglish Trials now being published by Messrs. William Hodge and Co., Edinburgh and London. The volume will be illustrated with several interesting contemporary portraits.

The American Law Review for April contains the following articles : Criminal Procedure in England ; Grotius and the Movement for International Peace, by R. Walton Moore ; The Violation of Laws Limiting Speed as Negligence, by Wm. P. Malburn; The International Society of Esperantist Jurists, by William E. Baff; and Rate Regulating Bodies and the Postal Service, by Nathan B. Williams.

The first quarterly number of the American Journal of International Liw for this year contains : The North Atlantic Coast Fisheries Arbitration, by Robert Lansing; The Orinoco Steamship Company Case before the Hague Tribunal, by William Cullen Dennis, with Dr. H. Limmaecb's addresses on that occasion ; Governments de facto, by Everett P. Wheeler; Francis Lieber, his Life and his Work, by Ernest Nys; the History of the Department of Sta.e, Part VI., by Gaillard Hunt; Studies on the Eastern Question, Part I., by G. Szelle; and, in the supplement, official Documents.

FIXED INCOMES.-Houses and Residential Flats can

now be Furnished on a new system of Deferred Payments especially adapted for those with fixed incomes who do not wish to disturb investments. Selection from the largest stock in the world. Everything legibly marked in plain figures. Maple and Co. Ltd., Tottenham Court. road, London, W.-ADVT.)

THE PRACTICE OF INTERPLEADER BY SHERIFFS AND HIgh BAILIFFSWith Acts, Rules, and Forms. By DANIEL WARDE, of the Middle Temple and South-Eastern Circuit, Barrister-at-Law. Second Edition, price 5s. 6d., post free.-HORACE Cox, “Law Times" Office, Windsor House, Bream's-buildings, E.C.AdVT.]

PARLIAMENTARY SUMMARY,

marked them with a cross against the name. The votes, it seemed, 00 not to have been counted for Mr. Grey, and were ultimately rejected. The presiding officer, the high sheriff, had still a casting vote and would have given it to the Conservative. Mr. (Justice) Ridley, had not Mr. Ridley with much bodourable feeling requested him to withbold it and send the double return to the House of Commons. Mr. Ridley's election was subsequently established " (Annual Register, 1878, p. 50.)

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On the 25th ult. tha Speaker, in reply to a question by which bis attention was directed, on a point of order, to an interrogatory as to whether the law officers of the Crown had been consulted by the Foreign Office on a matter of international law, which it was submitted was contrary to Parliamentary practice, gave an answer wbirb is of interest as illustrative of many of the varianoes in the practice of the British and American Constitutions. “It is well known," said the Speaker, “that the opinions of the law officers of the Crown cannot be cited here, and that if a member of the Government does bappen to cite the opinion of the law officers he must render bimsell responsible for it, and not endogvour to shelter himself bebind the opinion of his legal brethren. But, on the other band, I see po objection to the question as it appears. If the hon. member who put the question had proceeded to ask what was the result of the consultation, that would have been out of order. I do not think there is anything out of order in asking whether the opinion of the law officers was taken,” Mr. Bryce in his American Commonwealth thus con. trasts the different practice in the United States with reference to the opinions of the Attoroey-General: “He is the legal adviser of the President in those delicate questione, necessarily frequent onder the Constitution of the United States, which arise as to the limits of executive power and the relations of Federal to State authority, and generally in all legal matters. His opinions are frequently publiebed officially as a justification of the President's conduct and an indica. tion of the view which the executive takes of its legal position and duties in a pending matter.” Mr. Bryce adds the following piquant footnote: “ Apother variance from the practice of England, where the opinions of the law officers of the Crown are always treated as confidential”: (see Bryce's American Commonwealth, i., p. 89). On the 26th April 1901 it was unsucoessfully attempted in debate in the House of Commons to fix the law officers of the Crown with responsibility to Parliament for advice tendered to the Cabinet.

In the House of Commons, on the 27th ult., Mr. Beok asked the Prime Minister whether, having in view the di-satisfaction and mistrust felt concerning the present method of appointing persons to serve as justices of the peace, he would consider the ad visa bility of affordiog to the members of this House an early opportunity for the discussion of the whole question.- Notice of questions on the same subject had been given by other bon. members.--Mr. Asquith : In regard to this and subsequent questions on the same subject, while I am quite prepared to deal with most of the points in vilved, there are still one or two matters on which I am completing my information, and I should therefore prefer to postpone my reply till Monday.

Mr. Wedgwood asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he could say approximately how many additional stipendiary_msgistrates would be required in order to establish in Eogland and Wales & completo system of stipendiaries --Mr. Churchill : It would be im. possible to estimate beforehand the number of stipendiary magistrates who would be required to do the work now done by the unpaid justices. Much would depend on how far country cases and casee from small towns could be brought into the larger towns; bat in any case the number would amount to several hundreds.—Mr. Wedgwood : In view of the difficulty of obtaining justice from some of the local Benches would it not be worth the wbile of the Govern. ment to make an inquiry as to the cost of appointing stipendiary magistrates ?-Mr. Churchill : I do not think I should like to commit myself to an inquiry on a subject of this sort on «uch short notice.

Mr Byles asked the Attorney.General what steps would be necessary in order to constitute the court for the trial of election petitions & court of three judges instead of two.—The Attorney-General : The constitution of the court for the trial of election petitions is now regulated by sect. 2 of the Parliamentary Eleotions and Corrupt Practices Act 1879, which provides that the trial of election petitions should be conducted before two judges instead of one. Legislation would be necessary to constitate the court for trial of election petitions a court of tbree jodgor.--Mr. Bylee : Will the Government. also consider the propriety of going back to the old plan under which tbis House had control in these matters — Viscount Helmsley : Will the Government take steps to discourage the view which is prevalent in some quarters that the decisions on these election petitions are not impartial ?-No answer was given to these questions.

Mr. R. Gwyone asked the Prime Minister whether bis attention had been called to the fact that, under existing conditions, men summoned to act as common jorors in criminal cases not only received no remuneration for their services, but, if living at a distance, have to pay their own travelling expenses, and were in consequence losers of both time and money; and whether he would undertake to give members of Parliament an opportunity, before voting for salaries ior themselves for work volantarily undertaken, to vote for fair remunera tion for those working men who were compelled to serve the State as common jurors.—Mr. Asquith : Upon the subject of the status and remuneration of jurors—whiob hae, in my opinion, no connection with the question of payment of members-I must refer the bon gentle. man to answers given by the Home Secretary on the 6th and 20tb Maroh.-Mr. R. Gwynne asked whether, as there was now practically no opportunity of discussion on subjects raised by private members, the Government would bild a preliminary inquiry before legislation, on the subject was introduced.-Mr Churchill : I have bad some communications on the subject. I think there should be an inquiry by a departmental committee, or possibly by a Royal Commission, but I have not finally decided upon either the form of inquiry or the terms of reference.—Mr. Lawson asked whether the Government would not grant an inquiry by & Select Committee of this House.—Mr. Churchill : I am quite williog to consider that suggestion.

In reply to a question asked by Mr. Spear, Mr. Hobhouse said the total grants made by the Road Board, with the approval of the Treasury, to highway authorities towards works of roud improvement amounted to £141,568. In addition, grants amounting to about £425,000 bave been indicated and the details are now in course of settlement between various autborities and the board. The estimated cost of carrying out the improvements to which the board bave contributed £141,568 is £246,231.

The late Lord Esher when Master of the Rolls re-echoed, albeit anconsciously, the sentiments of the letter of protest, to which we called attention in last week's Law TIMES, written by Sir Alexander Cockburn as Lord Chief Justice in Feb. 1868 in deprecation of the employment of members of the Judicial Bench in the trial of election petitions, on the ground that such work is foreign to the duties which come within the ordinary sphere of the judicial office, and caloulated to expose the occupants of the Bench to udreasoning criticism and to lower the dignity of the judicial office in public estimation. Lord Esher, in replying to the toast of “The Judges of England” at the Guildhall banquet on the 9th Nov. 1892, thus referred to the appointment of the late Right Hon. Sir James Mathew, then a puispe judge and subsequently a Lord Justice of Appeal, to be president of the Evicted Tenante (Ireland) Commission, and to the attacks which had been made on him in that position. We quote from the Times of the 10th Nov. 1892: “The Master of the Rolle, in referring to the independence and impartiality wbich characterised the action of the judges, said their education and training made them impartial and determined to do what was right in every question which came before them. This, indeed, was so well known and recognised that when the judges of England acted within the scope of their ordinary duties nobody ever attempted even to suggest that they were not impartial. At the present moment, however, they knew that one of the judges bad been asked to go beyood the scope of bis ordinary duty, and he for one was surprised and corry tbat the judge in question had consented to do so. The result was inevitable. That judge bad been fiercely accused of partiality and of a want of desire to do justico. He could safely eay that throughout his long experience of twenty-four years there had not been a judge on the Eoglish Bodoh who had shown at any time or in any position any other feeling or desire than to te absolutely impartial and to do right.”

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MR. JUSTICE Ridley in the scrutiny of votes at Exet'r and West Bromwich, where the candidates have pressed so closely on each other in the number of votes recorded for each, must have been reminded of his own experience as a candidate in a close Parliamentary contest more than a generation ago. The incident is thus recorded in the Annual Register, 1878: " At a very curious and interesting election in South Northumberland the contest resulted in a tie.' On the declaration of the poll each candidate had 2912 uncontested votes. The Liberal coorlidate, Mr. Grey (the present Earl Grey), the heir presumptive of Earl Grey, had, in addition, two balloting papers on wbich the votere bad written Grey' instead

of having

In the House of Commons, on the 28th ult., Mr. Goulding moved the second reading of the Aliens Bill, wbiob requires that all aliena landing in this country in future should be registered, gives increased power to expel convicted aliens, provides that employers inducing aliens to come here must pay fair rates of wages, and proposes that inspection of aliens on shipe should not be limited as at present.Sir George Doughty seconded the motion. The rejection of the Bill was moved by Mr. Booth and seconded by Mr. C. Roberts. Mr. Chur:bil suggested that the House should allow the Bill to go to a Standing Committee, but eaid the proposals with regard to registration and inspection of aliens on board sbip were impracticable.-Tho Bill was read a second time by a maiorito of twaneu riva. And referred to a Standing Committee.'

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