in the in the county aforesaid of the of the in the county of in the city of

in the county of of the tenth part A. A. of county of of the eleventh part B. B. of of of the twelfth part C. C. of thirteenth part D. D. of in the county of fourteenth part E. E. the wife of G. E. of F. F. the wife of J. F. of in the county of J. J. the wife of A. J. of in the city of K. K. the wife of A. K. of aforesaid and L. L. of aforesaid and M. M. of aforesaid an infant under the age of twenty-one years of the fifteenth part and N. N. of in the county of of the sixteenth prt.

G. G. of

£

£

1. WHEREAS X. late of in the county of duly made his will dated the day of 188 and thereby appointed his friends B. T. and M. T. and his the testator's eon H. X. executors and trustees thereof and directed them to pay his just debts funeral and testamentary expenses as soon as conveniently might be after his decease and after bequeathing to each of the two former namely B. T. and M. T. a legacy of £ free of duty he bequeathed to his said trustees their executors administrators and assigns all his household goods and furniture and other household effects (except as thereinafter mentioned) in trust to permit his wife 8. X. to have the use and enjoyment thereof during her life and upon her death he declared that the same should sink into his residuary Jersonal estate and after bequeathing to bis said wife a legacy of £ to be paid within one calendar month after his decease and bequeathing to her his wines liquors spirits and other consumable stores and provisions the said testator devised and bequeathed all the real estate and all the residue of the personal estate of or to which he should have power to dispose by that his will (except estates vested in him as trustee or mortgagee) unto and to the use of his said trustees their heirs executors administrators and assigns respectively acccording to the nature thereof respectively upon trust to sell and call in and convert the same into money and invest the clear moneys arising therefrom in the names or name or under the legal control of the trustees or trustee for the time being of his will in or upon any of the Parliamentary stocks or public funds or Government securities of the United Kingdom or India or upon freehold copy hold or leasehold securities in England or in or upon the stocks funds shares debentures mortgages or securities of any corporation company or public body municipal commercial or otherwise in the United Kingdom or India with power from time to time to vary or transpose such stocks funds shares and securities into or for others of the nature thereby authorised at their or his discretion and as to the clear moneys to arise as aforesaid and the stocks funds shares and securities whereon the same should' from time to time be invested (which were thereinafter referred to as "the said trust funds ") upon trust that the said trustees or trustee' should from and out of the income arising therefrom pay the following sums respectively to his said wife during her life an annuity of and also such a sum not exceeding in the aggregate per annum as should provide her with a suitable house for her residence free from rent rates and taxes to his son X. the younger during his life an annuity of £ to his son T. X. during his life an annuity of £ to his grandson F. R. X. during the lifetime of his father the said T. X. an annuity of £ and to his the said testator's son E. X. during his own life an annuity of £ the said respective annuities to commence as from the day of his the said testator's death and upon the decease of his said son X. the younger he directed his said trustees or trustee to set apart out of the said trust funds the sum of £y and to stand possessed thereof upon trust to pay and divide the same unto and equally between all and every the children and child of his eaid son X. the younger who should be living at his the said testator's decease and the issue then living of such of his children as might be then dead' leaving issue as tenants in common the issue nevertheless of any deceased child to take equally between them (if more than one) such share only of and in the said sum of £y as his her or their parent would have taken had he or she been then living and upon the demise of his said son T. X. the said testator directed his said trustees or trustee to set apart out of the said trust fund■ a like sum of £y and to stand possessed thereof upon trust to pay and divide the same unto and equally between all and every the children and child of his said son 7. X. who should be living at h the said T. X.'s decease and the issue then living of such of his children as might be then dead leaving issue as tenants in common the issue nevertheless of any deceased child to take equally between them (if more than one) such share only of and in the said lastmentioned sum of £y as his her or their parent would have taken had he or she been then living and upon the decease of his said son E. X. the said testator directed his said trustees or trustee to set apart out of the said trust funds the sum of £z and to stand possessed thereof upon trust to pay to each of his the said testator's grandchildren J. X. H. X. and F. X. (sons of his said son E. X.) if living or to his issue if dead in equal shares as tenants in common the sum of £v and upon further trust to pay and divide the sum of £w (residue of the eaid sum of £) unto and equally between bis the said testator's grandchildren T. X. E. X. junior F. E. X. A. X. and 8. A. X. (the other children of his said son E. X. the younger) and the issue then living of such of them his said last-mentioned grandchildren as might be then dead leaving issue as tenants in common such issue nevertheless to take equally between them if more than one such share only of and in the said sum of £o as his her or their parent would have taken had he or she been then living. PROVIDED ALWAYS and the said teetator thereby declared that

J

if any or either of his said grandchildren J. X. H. X. and F. X. should die in the lifetime of their father the said E. X. the younger leaving issue living at their said father's decease then the sum of £v to which he or his issue would have been entitled had he or they been then living should be paid and divided unto and equally between all and every the children of his said son E. X. the younger living at his decease and the issue then living of such of them as might be then dead leaving issue as tenants in common such issue nevertheless to take equally between them if more than one such share only of and in the said last-mentioned sum of £v as bis her or their parent would have taken had he or she been then living and as to the residue (if any) of the said trust funds he directed his said trustees or trustee to pay the income arising therefrom to his said son H. X. during his life and upon his decease to pay and divide as well the capital as the income of the said residuary trust funds unto and equally between all and every the children and child of his said son H. X. who should be living at his decease and the issue then living of such of his said children as might be then dead leaving issue as tenants in common such issue nevertheless to take equally between them if more than one such share only of and in the said capital and income as his her or their parent would have taken had he or she been then living but if his said son H. X. should die without leaving any child or children or issue of a deceased child him surviving then he directed his said trustees or trustee to stand possessed of as well the capital as the income of the said residuary trust funds upon trust to pay and divide the same unto and equally between all and every the children and child of his said sone X junior T. X. and E. X. living at the decease of his said son H. X. and the issue then living of such of the said children as might be then dead leaving issue as tenants in common per capita and not per stirpes the issue nevertheless of any deceased child to take equally between them if more than one such share only of and in the said capital and income 88 his her or their parent would have taken had he or she been then living. PROVIDED ALWAYS and the said testator thereby declared that in the several gifts therein before by him made to or in favour of the children of his said song or the issue of deceased children he meant children and issue who being male attained the age of twenty-one years or being female attained that age or married under that age and none other and he directed his will to be read and construed accordingly and the said testator declared that it should be lawful for the said trustees or trustee to defer and postpone the sale calling in and conversion into money of the whole or any part or parts of his said real and residuary personal estate respectively so long as such trustees or trustee should in their or his absolute and uncontrolled discretion deem proper and that notwithstanding any part of his residuary personal estate might consist of property of a hazardous or wasting character and he empowered the trustees or trustee for the time being of his will to make out of the said trust funds any payments which they or he might think proper for calls on shares or otherwise for the benefit or in respect of his estate and he thereby declared that the actual income which should arise from any real or personal estate which should remain unsold or unconverted should whatever might be the nature of such real or personal estate and notwithstanding such personal estate might be of a hazardous or wasting nature and as well during the first year after his death as at all times" afterwards be considered and treated as income arising from the investments thereby directed to be made and should be applicable, accordingly and that no part thereof should in any event be liable to be retained as corpus or capital and he declared that the ehsre which any person being a female should take of and in any trust moneys under that his will should belong to such person for her separate use and he declared that he had not made provision for the appointment of new trustees or for the indemnity of trustees as such provision was already made by law.

2. AND WHEREAS the said testator duly made a codicil dated the day of 188 to his said will and by such codicil after reciting that he had by his said will devised and bequeathed his real and residuary personal estate unto his trustees therein na med upon trust for sale and conversion and as to the clear moneys to arise therefrom and the stocks funds shares and securities whereon the same should be invested he had directed his said trustees upon the decease of his son E. X. the younger to set apart out of the same the sum of £z and to stand possessed thereof upon trust (inter alia) to pay to each of the said testator's grandchildren J. X. H. X. F. X. (sons of his said son E. X. the younger) if living or if dead to his issue in equal shares the sum of £v and that since the making of the said will he had paid to or for the benefit of his said grandsons the amounts following namely to the said J. X. £a to the said H. X. £b and to the said F. X. £c the said testator thereby directed that the said respective sums of £a £b and £c so as aforesaid repeatively paid to or for the benefit of his said grandsons as also any future sums he might advance to or for their benefit respectively should be respectively taken by them or their issue as the case might be in part satisfaction of the respective Bums bequeathed or directed to be paid to them by his said will and the said testator thereby gave to each of his sisters O. O. and P. P.. a legacy of £1 free from duty and to his niece Q. Q. a like legacy of id free from duty and he directed the said respective legacies, to be paid within one week after his decease and he also gave to each of his said sisters an annuity of £e and to his said niece a like annuity of £e and he gave to his servant K. E. if living in the service of the survivor of himself and his wife at his or her death as the case might be an annuity of £f to be paid weekly free from duty and, he gave to his servant M. W. if living in his service at his the said

testator's death a legacy of £g free from duty and he 'directed the several legacies and annuities aforesaid to be paid from and out of the proceeds which should arise from the sale and conversion of his real and residuary personal estate and he confirmed his said will in all respects except as the same was thereby altered.

3. AND WHEREAS the said testator died on the day of 188 and on the day of 188 bis said will and codicil were duly proved by the said executors therein named in the District Probate Registry.

4. AND WHEREAS the said testator left no real estate.

5. AND WHEREAS the personal estate of the said testator at the time of his death consisted of the particulars set forth in the lefthand column of the first part of the account hereto annexed_and for the sake of identity signed by the said N. N. and by R. R.

of

6. AND WHEREAS in due course after the death of the said testator the said B. T. M. T. and H. G. X. out of the personal estate of the said testator paid his funeral and testamentary expenses and debts and the pecuniary legacies mentioned in the right-hand column of the said first part of the said account and also made the other payments mentioned in the same column and after making all such payments the residue of the said personal estate was of the amount or value of £g which was made up of the particulars also set forth in the right-hand column of the said first part of the said

account.

7. AND WHEREAS the said P. P. died on the

day of 18 having duly received the said annuities bequeathed to him by the said will.

8. AND WHEREAS the said X. junior died on the

day of 189 having duly received the said annuity bequeathed to him by the said will.

9. AND WHEREAS in due course after the death of the said X. junior the then trustees of the said will duly paid the said legacy of £y to his said children.

10. AND WHEREAS the annuitants mentioned in the said codicil have respectively some time since died having received their respective annuities bequeathed to them by such codicil.

11. AND WHEREAS the said T. X. is still living and is of the age of years or thereaboute.

12. AND WHEREAS the said E. X. is still living and is of the age of years or thereabouts.

(To be continued.)

OCCASIONAL NOTES.

The Home Secretary, on the recommendation of the Commissioner of Police and with the assent of the Treasury, has decided to grant an increase of pay to the Metropolitan Police at the rate of ls. 6d. a week to constables, 28. a week to sergeants, and in like proportion to the higher ranks.

Sir Percy William Bunting, of Endsleigh-gardens, N.W., barristerat law, editor of the Contemporary Review since 1882, who died on the 22nd July, aged seventy-five, left estate valued at £8037, gross, with net personalty £7963.

Mr. Edward Talbot Day Foxcroft, of Hinton House, Hinton Charterhouse, Bath, Somerset, barrister-at-law, who died on the 12th March, aged seventy-three years, left estate of the gross value of £100,196 15s. 7d., of which the net personalty has been sworn at £71,650 93.

Sir Richard Chaffey Baker, K.C.M.G., K.C., of Morialta, Adelaide, South Australia, First President of the Federal Senate of the Australian Commonwealth, formerly Attorney-General and Minister of Justice and Education, who died on the 18th March last, aged sixtyeight years, left estate valued at £69,283, of which £5283 is personal estate in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Robert Wallace, addressing the grand jury at the London Sessions on Tuesday, said the list was one of the lightest that had ever been known in connection with those sessions, and that it followed on with scarcely a break since the beginning of the year. This must be a matter of congratulation to everyone who took an interest in the well-being of the country. Not only was the calendar light from the point of view of the number of prisoners, but there was not a single case for trial in which any complicated issues were involved.

Lincoln's-inn Solicitor," writing to the Times under date of the 25th Aug., warns the public against an old man of plausible manners and shabby clothes who walks about in places like Hampstead Heath or Kew Gardens, and invites charitable assistance. He says: "I met him on Hampstead Heath last Christmas, and he then quoted the name of a certain firm of solicitors who, according to his statement, gave him copying work. On inquiry I found that this firm of solicitors no longer existed, but at the first meeting I was imprudent enough to give him money and my address so that he might call on me with a view to obtaining work. Since then he has accosted other persons with whom I happen to be acquainted and has quoted my name, and my firm's name, in connection with himself. I prefer not to publish my name in the matter, but beggars so seldom adopt the device of giving solicitors as a reference that a general warning to the public will probably suffice."

The annual conference of the Institute of Journalists was opened at Dundee on the 28th ult., and was presided over by Mr. J. Mitchell. The president said that during the past twelve months the institute had secured judgments of vital importance to the journalistic profession. Great attention had been given to legal troubles by which the path of the working journalist was beset. The definition of contempt of court was too loose to be allowed to stand; more irritating still was the tendency of juries to award damages against newspapers in certain classes of libel actions. At the present time journalists were at the mercy of unscrupulous lawyers, who as matters stood need never be at a loss to discover a suitable client. The council bad, with the Newspaper Society and the Federation of Northern News. paper Owners, been engaged in the preparation of a Bill to amend the law of libel in England. and this measure was now in the hands of Sir George Toulmin. It was hoped that its effect would be to give some measure of fair play to honest and careful journalists.

In the City of London Court, on the 23rd ult., before His Honour Judge Lumley Smith, K.C., one of the most extraordinary cases under the Workmen's Compensation Act was heard in which Albert E. Aston, packer, 15, Edith-street, Great Cambridge-street, Haggers ton, claimed damages against Evans, Sons, Lescher, and Webb Limited, druggists, 60, Bartholomew-close, E.C., for a peculiar accident that occurred to him. It seemed that on the evening of the 31st May (Derby Day) Aston was accidentally locked in the warehouse of the defendants, by whom he was employed. A thunderstorm came on, and the lightning appeared to have had such an effect upon him that he was dazed when taken out of the warehouse and removed to the hospital. He was said to have been either struck by the lightning or suffered a nervous shock as the result of finding himself locked in while the storm was raging. He was released the same evening. He was still incapacitated as the result of the injuries which he sustained, and claimed 98. 6d. a week until he became well, that being half his wages. Defendants now submitted to an award, and an order was made accordingly that 98. 6d. weekly should be paid to Aston until further order.

There is but little doubt that the country will soon have to form some opinion as to the pros and cons of the principles involved in the Women's Enfranchisement Bill. The arguments for and against the intervention of women in political matters are pretty well known, and they must be weighed carefully in a very short time in order that some definite course of action may be determined upon. It is not possible, at any rate, to deny the great value of the work already being done by women in local affairs. In particular, their influence in Poor Law matters has been beneficent. In those special concerns which touch most closely the lives of women and children of the lower classes, their activities have been most usefully exerted. There are some 1300 women members of boards of guardians, and some two-thirds of all the boards in the country have some female member serving. When we come to other departments of local government we find a distinot drop in the number of women being members. Thus there are only about 150 who are members of rural district councils, whilst some fifteen are town councillors, seven urban district councillors, four county councillors, and one or two preside as mayors. These figures are important for various reasons. They indicate, perhaps, to what degree women are likely to respond to any opportunities given to them, and the class of work which seems chiefly to interest them and to evoke their most useful service. It is not to be forgotten that some municipal authorities have been agitating for an extension of their possibilities after having themselves experienced the benefit of their co-operation. On the other hand, some of those who have worked with women must recognise special limitations, and realise that, speaking generally, a woman is far more capable in matters of pure administration than in those which require the formulation of a policy. It is just here that we find one of the points which will require consideration as the time draws near for deciding to what, if any, extent there shall be afforded to them a greater share either in voting upon or otherwise determining the social and political problems of the day.

PARLIAMENTARY SUMMARY.

66

MR. LLOYD GEORGE on the 22nd ult. resisted an amendment to the motion that the House of Commons adjourn till the 24th Oct. by the insertion of the words "29th Aug.," in substitution for the former date, by laying stress on the fact that "under an Act of George III. when the House is adjourned for a longer period than a fortnight it 'Hon. members," he is open to be summoned at any period." said, "may take this assurance from the Government, that if circumstances arise which in our judgment make it necessary that we should summon the House for the purpose of supporting any action which we may take, we certainly shall not hesitate to summon it." A power of interfering with adjournments in certain cases has been conceded to the Crown by statute. The Act 39 & 40 Geo. 3, c. 14, amended by 33 & 34 Vict. c. 81, enacts that when both Houses of Parliament stand adjourned for more than fourteen days, the King may issue a proclamation with the advice of his Privy Council declaring that Parliament shall meet on a day not less than six days from the proclamation, and the Houses of Parliament then stand adjourned to the day and place declared in the proclamation,

and all the orders which may have been made by either House and appointed for the original day of meeting or any subsequent day stand appointed for the day named in the proclamation: (see May's Parliamentary Practice, p. 47). Other Acts (45 & 46 Vict. o. 48, s. 13, and 45 & 46 Vict. c. 49, s. 19) have provided that whenever the Crown shall cause the militia to be embodied or the Army Reserve or Militia Reserve to be called out on permanent service when Parlia. ment stands prorogued or adjourned for more than ten days, the King shall issue a proclamation for the meeting of Parliament within ten days. Accordingly, on the 7th Oct. 1899, Parliament, which stood prorogued till the 27th Oct., was summoned by proclamation to meet on the 17th Oct.

THE prorogation of Parliament is in the absolute discretion of the Crown, whereas adjournment is solely in the power of each House; as exercised by the House of Lords till the 26th Oct. and by the House of Commons till the 24th Oct. respectively. The pleasure of the Crown has occasionally been signified in person, by message, commission, or proclamation that both Houses should adjourn, and in some cases such adjournments have scarcely differed from prorogations. But although no instance has occurred in which either House has refused to adjourn, the communication might be disregarded. Business has been transacted after the King's desire has been made known, and the question for adjournment has afterwards been put in the ordinary manner and determined after debate, amendment, and division. "Such interference on the part of the Crown," writes Sir Erskine May, "is impolitic, as it may meet with opposition, and unnecessary, as Ministers need only assign a sufficient cause for adjournment when each House could adjourn of its own accord and for any period, however extended, which the occasion may require. The pleasure of the Crown was last signified on the 1st March 1814, and it is probable that the practice will not be revived" : (May's Parliamentary Practice, pp. 46-47).

THE death of Mr. Adam Rolland Rainy, who was member in the House of Commons for the Kilmarnock Burghs, on the 26th ult., although it has occurred during an adjournment of the House of Commons, will not necessarily leave the constituency without a Parliamentary representative till a motion be moved for the issue of a writ for a new election at the meeting of Parliament. When vacancies occur by death, the law provides for the issue of write, during a recess by prorogation or adjournment, without the immediate authority of the House, in order that a representative may be chosen without loss of time by the place which is deprived of its member. By 24 Geo. 3, s. 2, c. 26, as amended by 26 & 27 Vict. c. 20, on receipt of a certificate (under the hands of two members that any member has died either during the recess or previouely thereto, the Speaker is required to give notice forthwith in the London Gazette (which is to be acknowledged by the publisher) and after six days from the insertion of euch notice to issue his warrant to the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new writ. But the Speaker may not issue his warrant during the recess (1) unless the return of the late member has been brought into the office of the Clerk of the Crown fifteen days before the end of the last sitting of the House, nor (2) unless the application is made so long before the next meeting of the House for the dispatch of business as that the writ may be issued before the day of meeting-that is to say, the six days' provision must have been complied with: (see May's Parliamentary Practice, p. 636).

RECENT DECISION.

WILLIAMS AND SON v. GEORGE ALLEN AND WIFE. IN the County Court of Lincolnshire, holden in the city of Lincoln, before His Honour Judge Sir Sheraton Baker, on the 26th July, the above case was heard.

The plaintiffs acted as solicitors for the wife of Allen, and did certain work professionally for her which culminated in their applying to the magistrates for an order for maintenance, the parties having separated. The magistrates made an order on the husband to pay his wife 10s. per week with costs. The plaintiffs now sued for £5 10s. 6d. further costs.

J. G. Williams for the plaintiff.

G. L. Haslehurst for the defendant Allen (the wife of Allen was not represented).

Haslehurst. The costs were incurred in relation to the procedure before the magistrates, and the plaintiffs cannot recover more in this court. Cale v. James (76 L. T. Rep. 119; (1897) 1 Q. B. 418) decides that the Summary Jurisdiction (Married Women) Act 1895 intended to exolude any remedy in respect of costs other than that specified in sect. 5, sub-sect (d). The costs allowed by the magistrates have been paid to the plaintiffs, and they cannot now claim more.

His HONOUR.-The bill of costs before me discloses several items. Some items were incurred by the wife before any suggestion arose of taking proceedings before the magistrates; other items were incurred in connection with the magisterial proceedings. Supposing the first items had been incurred and no magisterial proceedings had taken place, could not the plaintiffs have claimed for them as necessaries for the wife? Certainly they could. The other items which clearly relate to the magisterial proceedings I disallow on the authority of the case quoted by Mr. Haslehurst. I find for the plaintiffs for £3 0s. 4d. against the defendants jointly.

Judgment accordingly.

GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.

LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD AS A PARLIA MENTARIAN.

(An Appreciation by a Political Opponent.)

LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD died on the 18th ult. full of years and of honours in the highest sense of the term, if honours may be regarded as including the respect and affection which great qualities both of head and heart, combined with a rigid adherence to conscientious convictions regardless of all personal sacrifice, must command alike from friends and political opponents, for Lord James had no personal enemies. His career supplies a conspicuous instance-but only one out of many-of the baselessness of the calumny, so often uttered or implied, that the Bar is a selfish and self-seeking calling. It is commonly said that Lord James refused the great office of Lord Chancellor in 1886 owing to his opposition to Home Rule. There was in all probability no offer of the Great Seal, and therefore no actual refusal of the Lord Chancellorship. It would be, however, quite accurate to say that Lord James as a matter of course would have been Lord Chancellor in Mr. Gladstone's third Administration of 1886 had he not severed, owing to insuperable difference with his old colleagues on the Home Rule question, his connection with the official Liberal Party, and emphasised that Beverance by voting with the Unionist Government on Mr. Jesse Collings' amendment to the Address to the Throne at the opening of the session of 1886 which was carried and instantly followed by the resignation of the Unionist Govern ment and the formation of Mr. Gladstone's short-lived third Administration. Of the purity of his motives Mr. Gladstone himself had no doubt. Mr. Gladstone's biographer, Viscount Morley, bas placed on record his views of Lord James, and his words may well be reproduced as they bear testimony to his great powers as a Parlia mentarian: "The session of 1883," writes Lord Morley, marked by one legislative performance of the first order, the Bill devised against corrupt practices at elections. This invaluable measure was worked through the House of Commons mainly by Sir Henry James, the Attorney-General, whose skill and temper in a business that was made none the easier by the fact of every man in the House supposing himself to understand the subject excited Mr. Gladstone's cordial admiration; it strengthened that peculiarly warm regard in which he held Sir Henry, not only now, but even when the evil days of political severance came

was

* was

(Morley's Life of Gladstone, iii., p. 110). Of all the measures Mr. Gladstone placed on the statutebook, none more salutary than the law that purified corrupt practices at elections, and that Sir Henry James was his principal assistant in that great achievement in itself alone constitutes an unassailable claim that his memory be held in grateful remembrance as a friend and benefactor to representative government. Another Prime Minister, also a political opponent, bore ungrudging tribute to Lord James of Hereford at a supreme moment of his life as one who had given him the chance of success which he so splendidly utilised. Mr. Aequith was the guest of the Bar at a banquet given in his honour on becoming Prime Minister, at which Sir Edward Clarke presided, on the 10th July 1908. In his speech on that occasion Mr. Asquith thus referred to Lord James :

"After some pretty lean years in which one used to welcome as an unexpected and grateful phenomenon a County Court brief marked

one guinea, and coming from a client whose time and method of pay ment were both nebulous and problematical, I had the great good fortune of securing the favour and help of a great man, my dear and revered friend Lord James of Hereford. I owe him a debt which he has never thought of exacting, and which I can never repay."

It is quite certain that Lord James owed his remarkable success in the House of Commons, and subsequently in the House of Lords, to his training and practice at the Bar. The subjects on which he attained his great Parliamentary reputation were subjects that related to constitutional law and strict legalities. His argument in 1872 in opposition to a motion by Mr. Butt for the House of Commons to resolve itself into a committee of the whole House for the consideration of charges of political partisanship and judicial misconduct brought against Mr. Justice Keogh in connection with the trial of the Galway election petition of that year with a view to subsequent proceedings for his emoval from the Benoh won the admiration of men of all parties for its brilliancy and acumen. In the constitutional arguments in reference to questions of eligibility of persons still serving terms of imprisonment or unpardoned after conviction for political offences for which they had not served the full term of imprisonment for election to the House of Commons he took a leading part. If his advice had been adopted, the series of incidents in reference to the taking of the Parliamentary oath in the case of Mr. Bradlaugh, which gravely reflected on the dignity of the House of Commons and were characterised by turmoil and uproar, would never have occurred. In April 1880 the Speaker received a letter from Mr. Bradlaugh claiming to make an affirmation instead of taking the oath of allegiance. He founded his claim on the Evidence Amendment Act 1869, which had been passed owing to his refusal to take an oath in a court of justice, which enabled a witness to affirm instead of swearing. On this the Speaker wrote to Mr. Gladstone stating that he would leave the question to the House, and suggesting that on his statement being made a motion should be proposed for a Select Committee. The committee was duly appointed, and reported by a majority of one, against a minority that contained names so mighty as James, Herschell, Whitbread, and Bright, that the claim to affirm was not a good claim. The decision of the committee had the effect of prohibiting Mr. Bradlaugh from the discharge of his duty as a member in that Parlisment, and a Relieving Bill in 1883 was rejected by a majority of three. When after the General Election of 1885 Mr. Bradlaugh went to the table to take the oath, the Speaker would suffer no intervention against him, and in 1888 Mr. Brad laugh, although the majority in the House of Commons was Conservative, secured the passing of an affirmation law, and thus placed matters in the position in which they would have stood eight years previously if only the sapient counsel of Sir Henry James had been adopted. On his greatest achievement, the Corrupt Practices Act 1883, to which reference has been made, it is unnecessary to dilate.

On the resignation of the Gladstone Government in 1885, Sir Henry James, when retiring from the position of Attorney-General, was sworn of the Privy Council, and made a new departure by prac. tising at the Bar after acceptance of the high office of Privy Councillor, which in days gone by was regarded, by reason of its dignity and from the circumstance that Privy Councillors had precedence of members of the judiciary who were not members of the Privy Council, as precluding its holders from appearing in the courts in the pursuit of their profession. Thus the ciroum. stance that the holder of the position of Judge-AdvocateGeneral, while it was a political appointment, was sworn of the Privy Council entailed, as in the cases of Mr. Villiers, Sir John Mowbray, Sir George Osborne Morgan, Mr. Mellor, and many others, retirement from the practice of the Bar, although when in 1868 Sir Colman O'Logblen, Bart., an eminent member of the Irish Bar, had been appointed Judge-Advocate-General he did not retire from the Irish Bar, where the Attorney-General for Ireland, who, like the Lord Advocate for Scotland, is invariably sworn of the Privy Council. The departure from a practice which was not in consonance with the altered public opinion of the times made by Sir Henry James has been followed by Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward Clarke, Sir Edward Carson, Mr. F. E. Smith, and several other members of the Privy Council who after they had been sworn of that body have pursued the practice of their profession, and, indeed, two gentlemen-Sir Robert Finlay and Sir Rufus Isaacs-have been sworn of the Privy Council when actually holding the officer of Attorney-General.

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On yet another matter of Bar etiquette-the intervention in debate in Parliament by members who have been interested, however remotely, counsel at the Bar in the matters of discussion-Sir Henry James in the House of Commons in Feb. 1893 expressed views from which he appeared to think that in such cases the rule should not be so strict as that laid down by Sir Charles (Lord) Russell in the conversation which then took place, and that the attitude of members in such cases should depend on the discretion and judgment of the individual. In the debates in committee

on

the Home Rule Bill in 1893 in the House of Commons, Sir Henry James' deep erudition as a constitutional lawyer served him in good stead, and his criticisms, which were always fair, were heard with respect and attention, and on more than one occasion commended themselves to the judgment of Mr. Gladstone, who accepted the amendments thus proposed.

In 1895, on the coming into office of the Unionist Party, Sir Henry James became a member of the Cabinet, was raised to the peerage, was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and was subse quently made a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council-a position which he valued as he thus became an honorary

Lord of Appeal, and qualified by the rules of the House of Lords to take part in its proceedings when sitting in the exercise of its appellate jurisdiction. Lord James' career of sixteen years in the House of Lords was devoted, till his retirement from the Cabinet in 1902, to the discharge of the duties of his office and to attendance in the House of Lords as a Court of Appeal and at the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, while as an arbitrator he did good service in many dieputes, notably the Engineering strike of 1896. He retained to the last his wonderfully tenacious memory, his wiry versatility of intellect, his mental alertness. He was, it is no exaggeration to say, one of the most personally beloved and respected men of his generation, to whom it was an unalloyed delight to do a good service to anyone with whom he came in contact, and who in a strenuous and combative career as a party policitian was not only on his own side, but with his opponents, a universal favourite.

The career of Lord James of Hereford, which was characterised by a great act of self-renunciation in taking a step which he well knew involved for him the loss for ever of the Lord Chancellorship, on which he made no secret of having set his heart as an object of just ambition, is not without its parallels in legal annals. To anyone conversant with the biographies of legal and judicial personages there are instances of sacrifices for conscience sake or in obedience to public duty in the lives of members of the Bar and of judges as inspiring as any furnished by men in other walks of life. In days gone by, judges bore with cheerfulness and dignity dismissal from the judiciary for declining to decide cases in accordance with the wishes of the Sovereign. When the independence of the judiciary had been established, saorifices of careers and loss of high preferment have been as cheerfully borne. Denman and Brougham at the Bar upheld their independence when resentment might have spelled to them absolute ruin. Sir Charles Wetherell as Attorney-General resigned office and every hope of the highest judicial office which was within his grasp owing to his conscientious opposition to the Catholic Emancipation policy of his Government. O'Connell and Butt both refused judicial preferment because they Jegarded its acceptance as prejudicial to the great political movemen's with which they were connected. Dunning (Lord Ashburton), who, like Lord James, was subsequently Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was dismissed on political grounds from the Solicitor-Generalship at the English Bar. Frime Serjeant FitzGerald was dismissed at the Irish Bar from his great office from adherence to principles strongly entertained. Sir Edward Clarke in our own time twice resigned a seat in the House of Commons on which his talents and virtues reflected lustre owing to the enunciation of opinions which were not in accord with the sentiments of his constituents. These instances of single-mindedness and nobility of character taken almost at haphazard may be regarded as typical of the tone and character of the Profession of which, when taken at its best and highest, Lord James of Hereford was so beloved and so inspiring an exponent.

THE LAW OF THE AIR.

By WAYNE C. WILLIAMS, Member of the Denver and Colorado Bar Associations. (From Case and Comment.)

WHEN we watch an aviator in his white-winged aeroplane making a daring flight and soaring over the earth, we do not think of him as a violator of the law, yet, technically, that is what he is; for, throughout all of his journey, unless he be over the water, he flies over the land of others, and this is a trespass upon the land of those where the air craft bas flown. Of course the damage is infinitesimal, and no one thinks of suing an aviator for such a trespass, but it is from this starting point that the law of aeroplanes will be developed. The beginning and growth of air navigation will call for the application of old legal principles to decidedly novel conditions. The common law of England, as adopted and applied in America, is the reservoir out of which materials will be found to work out the new law of the air, and the leading principles are already at hand; it remains to apply and develop them. The crystallised common sense and practical knowledge so characteristic of the common law will prove as comprehensive and elastic here as it has in so many other new conditions that science and improvement have brought to the English race. Some concrete case will arise when some aviator drops out of the eky, and some judge will then lay down the guiding principles of the law governing aeroplanes. Later, statutes will follow, once custom has shown the limits of the operation of air craft.

Trespass by Aeroplanes.

The two leading principles from which the law of aeroplanes will be developed are those defined as trespass and nuisance. The foundation principle is that of trespass, as suggested above-that every soaring aeroplane and its pilot are trespassers upon the land over which the aviator rides, unless he be there by licence, or of right.

The development of this principle came largely from balloon caseɛ. In 1815 mention is made for the first time of the rights of a man in a balloon, in Pickering v. Rudd (1 Starkie, p. 56; 4 Campb. 219; 16 Revised Rep. 777, and then as dictum). The plaintiff was objecting because the defendant had climbed on a temporary platform above his ground and lopped off a troublesome "Virginia creeper that overhung the defendant's close. Lord Ellenborough observed: "I recollect a case where I held that firing a gun loaded with shot into a field was a breaking of the close. I never yet heard that firing in vacuo could be considered as a trespass. Would

trespass lie for passing through the air in a balloon over the land of another ? Lord Ellenborough's query is a vital one, now. In pure legal theory it is a trespass to simply place a finger over the land of another. The owner of land in New York State, or in any other State, knows that he has not only his soil, and the land downward, but an indefinite distance upward, as well. As Blackstone states it, 'Land hath also, in its legal signification, an indefinite extent upwards as well as downwards." This is the principle upon which the landowers of the nation may base their legal rights in any case involving aviators.

Aviation as a Nuisance.

The law of nuisance upon this subject was first expressed in Fay v. Prentice (in 1 C. B., at p. 828), decided in 1845, the court observing that it must be presumed that the projecting of this cornice over the plaintiff's garden is a nuisance and an injury to him." In Kenyon v. Hart (11 L. T. Rep. 733; 6 Best & S. 248; 34 L. J. 87, Mag.; 11 Jur. N. S. 602; 13 W. R. 406), decided in 1865, and in Wands. worth District v. United Telegraph Company (51 L. T. Rep. 148; 13 Q. B. Div. 904; 53 L. J. 449, Q. B.; 32 W. R. 776; 48 J. P. 676; 12 Eng. Rul. Cas. 630) the question of trespassing at a great height over the land of others is discussed, and in the latter case Bowen, LJ. observed that, "if the case were that of a single landowner I would be loth to hold that he had not the right to objest to anybody putting anything over his land at any height."

Pollock, the great English law writer on Torts and other subjects, discusses the whole question in a brilliant manner. On p. 423 of his work on Torts he says: "It has been doubted whether it is a trespass to pass over the land without touching the soil, as one may in a balloon, or to cause a material object, as shot fired from a gun, to paes over it. It does not seem possible, on the principles of the common law, to assign any reason why an entry at any height above the surface should not also be a trespass. The improbability of actual damage may be an excellent practical reason for not suing a man who sails over one's land in a balloon; but this appears irrelevant to the pure legal theory. Then one can hardly doubt that it might be a nuisance, apart from any definite damage, to keep a balloon hovering over another man's land."

This language may well be read by the modern aviator when he prepares for his flight. The aeroplane will probably become so common that some limitation must be placed upon its operation over land. Perhaps the common-law rule that an entry at any height is a trespass will be modified, certainly this seems most reasonable, and a "zone of innocent passage " will be created, defining the lowest height at which the aviator may fly, or there may be "air routes,' or a court decision construing the words "reasonable height and holding that this varies with the locality, as in New York City or over Long Island, for example. In addition the aviator must have a starting point for his machine, and his ground rights may become important and may need to be legally defined.

Liability for Damages.

But one other principle must be kept in view by the aviator, especially if he be flying in New York State, and this is laid down in Guille v. Swan (19 Johns., p. 381; 10 Am. Dec. 234), and decided in 1822. Guille made a balloon ascension, and, coming down in a dangerous way, called for help. A crowd of onlookers followed the falling aeronaut into the garden of Swan, the plaintiff, and there broke down the fence and destroyed the flowers. The attorney for the balloonist admitted that his client was liable for the damage done by the aeronaut and his balloon, but denied liability for damage done by the crowd that followed him into the garden. But the court held the balloonist liable for the damage done by the crowd, as well, and the daring aviator of that day paid 90 dollars to Swan for ruined turnips, potatoes, and flowers caused by the attempt of his admirers to rescue him. The language of the court is interesting: "I will not say that ascending in a balloon is an unlawful act, for it is not so; but it is certain that the aeronaut has no control over its motion horizontally; he is at the sport of the winds and is to descend when and how he can; his reaching the earth is a matter of hazard. . Now, if his descent under such circumstances would ordinarily and naturally draw a crowd of people about him, either from curiosity or for the purpose of rescuing him from a perilous situation, all this he ought to have foreseen and must be responsible for."

While the aeroplanist can control his machine better than a balloon can be controlled, yet the principle laid down is the same, for if his descent would draw a crowd on to the land of another and damage is done, he is liable for it, under this case.

Interstate Commerce.

When aeroplanes are carrying mails, swooping over international boundary lines, and defying customhouses, other principles must be brought forward and other laws formulated to control them. Congress will be called upon to pass laws regulating aeroplanes as interstate carriers, under the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution, and the Interstate Commerce Commission will also have opportunity to pass upon questions affecting air craft that cross State lines. In any such legislation or decisions the prophetic language of the late Mr. Justice Brewer of the Supreme Court will be recalled and quoted. In Re Debs (158 U. S. 564; 39 L. ed. 1092; 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 900) he said: "Constitutional provisions do not change, but their operation extends to new matters as the modes of business and the habits of life of the people vary with each succeeding generation. Just so it is with the grant to the national Government of power over interstate commerce. The Constitution has not changed. The

power is the same. But it operates to day upon modes of interstat commerce unknown to the fathers, and it will operate with equa! force upon any new modes of such commerce which the future may develop.'

And the new mode of interstate commerce is at hand.

THE LAWYERS OF CHARLES DICKENS.
(From the American Law Review.)

A CENTURY ago next February there was born into the world one of the most remarkable humanists that ever lived-a humanist, not in the cause of philanthropy or social science, but in that wider sphere of creating through a superb art a fanciful folk-world of undying and unmitigated delight. Never was there a greater literary debt for human gratitude to pay than that which three generations at least of the English-speaking race owe to Charles Dickens. Two great countries are indebted to this master of human observation for the saving grace of national humour. Most of us are taught its appreciation almost at our mother's knee. We later revel in its wholesome, untainted unction until unconsciously some measure of his sense of humour, his wonderful sympathy, his point of human observation, is woven into the warp and woof of our lives and character.

It is always, with Dickens, as it should be with all true and great novelists, the characters that stand out in living memory-not so much the language used-still less the story. It seems more true of him than of any other writer, because no one else has ever got quite so dramatically close to the secret foibles of the human heart, and held them up in such a grotesque way as to delight us, rather than disturb us Although we laugh, we know what he means, and we quietly fold the eternal lesson of its verity into our secret consciousness. It is rare to find a lawyer who does not admire Dickens. No one better than he appreciated the dramatic value of a legal atmosphere. There are few of his books that do not possess it in some degree. He seldom treats us kindly--and yet we, as a profession, are the more appreciative of his art because we come more in contact with the real drama of human weakness and better understand his point of view.

Still, Dickens was not a lawyer. His legal experience was largely obtained as an obscure under-clerk in the office of a Mr. Blackmore, a solicitor. He was only fifteen years old. An alert mind is always most susceptible to impressions at that age-and in the case of this great humanist of the imagination, the sights and sounds of the routine of legal machinery sunk deep; thus the background of legal atmosphere in his novels is easily explained.

Dickens had not a legal mind in any sense. One finds no legal problems of any moment either seized on or worked out in his books But no man ever lived and wrote who possessed a more acute sense of the dramatic possibilities, or a more humorous and sensitive percep tion, of the weaknesses and foibles of a lawyer's life. His days were spent among the dramatic types and figures of the law courts, and his nights in the laborious process of self-taught stenography-with such results, indeed, that it was said "there never was such a shorthand writer."

After two years in the solicitor's office, Dickens started in as a reporter of speeches in the House of Commons, and later in the House of Lords, While his pencil flew to the dull rhythm of some lord's tedious verbosity; the sub-conscious sensitive plate of his perceptions must have been busy taking on some of the impressions he later furnished so lavishly to an admiring world of readers.

He was always on the look-out for queer people, and as he had little reverence for the law, what wonder that he rarely treats with kindness the vain, weak, grasping, pompous humbugs he saw about him in his goings and comings at Mr. Blackmore's office and from the dimly lighted reporters' gallery of Parliament? These puppets of the big wigged Bench and busy Bar were capital material, if the truth must be told, and one can only marvel at the artist's unerring skill and infinite variety. Of course American lawyers are not so free from foibles as not to appreciate to the full Dickens' conception of our cousins across the sea. In fact there is hardly a picture or a line that does not find its counterpart right at any Bar. Dickens' sense of human nature is broad. Its range is very wide; and its course is aglow, even in this day and generation, with the light of one of the keenest observers that ever set watch upon the ways of men.

These lawyers of Dickens are for the most part minor characters. But as Chesterton truly says, "Dickens not only conquered the world, he conquered it with minor characters."

Taking the books as they appear in chronological order, the most normal, everyday, commonplace type of lawyer that Dickens ever drew is found in that incohesive mine of delight, The Pickwick Papers"-where one would naturally look only for the fantastic and the

bizarre.

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He was a little, high-dried man, with a dark, squeezed-up face, and small, restless, black eyes, that kept winking and twinkling on each side of his little inquisitive nose, as if they were playing a perpetual game of peep-bo with that feature. He was dressed all in black, with boots as shiny as his eyes, a low white neck-cloth, and a clean shirt with a frill to it. A gold watch chain and seals depended from his fob. He carried his black kid gloves in his hands, not on them; and as he spoke. thrust his wrists beneath his coat-tails with the air of a man who was in the habit of propounding some regular posers."

There we have Mr. Perker of Gray's-inn, and can well imagine the keen satisfaction with which Dickens must have picked out this description from the storehouse of his memory as under-clerk in Mr. Blackmore's office. It does not matter that Perker is the attorney of the choleric Wardle on the trail of the scamp Jingle—and that through that artfully.