Acts, and embodies in a few clauses all the provisions in them which it was thought desirable to preserve. This is a great advantage, as we thus find compressed into a few pages what we should otherwise have to seek through several volumes of the statutes at large. These repealed statutes are contained in the first part of the first schedule, and are thus classified by Mr. Maugham:

"1. Of the acts which regulate attorneys-their qualification, privileges, and liabilities-the following are repealed, and, to a certain extent, re-enacted:

"3. The following statutes, containing restrictions on attorneys and solicitors, are repealed and not renewed :

4 Hen. 4, c. 19, by which no officer of a lord of a franchise can be an attorney.

1 Hen. 5, c. 4, providing that no undersheriff shall be an attorney during the time he is in office.

33 Hen. 6, c. 7, limiting the number of attorneys in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Norwich.

"One, however, of the restricting statutes is re-enacted; viz.: 5 Geo. 2, c. 18-incapacitating attorneys and solicitors from being justices of the peace, except in chartered places.

"4. The old enactments relating to filing retainers or warrants of attorney to prosecute or defend, are also repealed and not re-enacted. The practice of filing warrants of attorney was in fact abolished by the rule of Court of Hilary Term, 1834, under the authority of 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 42, s. 1.

18 Hen. 6, c. 9.

32 Hen. 8, c. 30.

18 Eliz. c. 14, s. 3.
4 & 5 Anne, c. 16."

The second part of the schedule contains as singular an

instance of unnecessary precaution as any specimen of modern legislation that we ever looked into, being neither more nor less than a list of some of the acts which this statute does not repeal, while, so far from there being anything in the rest of it to lead any one to suppose they were repealed, portions of a great number of them, which in this second part of the schedule is so declared unrepealed, are expressly preserved from repeal in the first part of the schedule, which repeals the other portions. The first clause of the Act repeals and saves the several statutes mentioned in the first and second parts of this schedule respectively.

The length of service, three years for graduates of Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, London, or Durham, and five years for those who are not graduates, and the mode of service with barristers, pleaders, and town agents, remain the same as before (ss. 3, 6, 7), except that graduates may now serve one year with the London agent. Mr. Symons suggests (p. 2), that clerks to attornies or solicitors of the Palatine Courts of Lancaster and Durham must, though they are graduates, serve five years. But this is a forced construction which the act will not bear, or which will be easily obviated in practice. The mode of service seems to be made a little more stringent than it was before, for the 12th section enacts,

"That every person who now is, or hereafter shall be bound by contract in writing to serve as a clerk to any attorney or solicitor shall, during the whole time and term of service to be specified in such contract, continue and be actually employed by such attorney or solicitor in his proper business, practice, or employment of an atorney or solicitor, save only and except in the cases hereinbefore mentioned."

Whether this clause, the language of which is almost identical with that of the former statute, (see re Taylor, 4 B. & C. 344), will overrule the case of Ex parte Blunt (2 W. Bl. 764), -where it was held, that a clerk may work for wages with another attorney after he has performed the business of the attorney to whom he is bound, and Ex parte Llewellyn (2 Dowl. N. S. 701), where it was held, that a clerk may accept the office of auditor of a poor-law union, and perform the duties after the close of business hours as extra labour,-it would be useless now to consider, as almost everything con

nected with the admission of attornies will depend very much on the discretion of the judges.

By the 2 Geo. II. c. 23, s. 15, no attorney or solicitor could have more than two clerks at one time, or by 22 Geo. II. c. 46, s. 7, take or retain a clerk after leaving off practice, or by Reg. Trin. 31 Geo. III. while he should be retained as a writer or clerk by any other attorney or solicitor, and service by any clerk under articles to an attorney or solicitor for and during any part of the time that such attorney or solicitor should be so employed as writer or clerk by any other attorney or solicitor, was not to be deemed or accounted good service under such articles. These three provisions are embodied in the 4th section of the present statute, without any material subtraction, addition or alteration. For a violation of the two first prohibitions there neither was nor is a penalty provided; from which it may be inferred, that service in either of those cases would not be liable primâ facie to be deemed not good service. It is clear that, as the language of the present statute is the same as that of the 2 Geo. II. c. 23, s. 15, and it was held under this that if attornies are in partnership each may have two clerks, Ex parte Bailey, 9 B. & C. 691, the same rule will prevail under the present act.

The fifth section is extremely stringent. It provides, that if the attorney or solicitor become bankrupt, take the benefit of the Insolvent Act, or "be imprisoned for debt, and remain in prison for twenty-one days," any Court in which he has been admitted may, upon the application of the clerk, direct the articles "to be discharged, or assigned to such person upon such terms and in such manner as the said Court shall think fit." If the master die or leave off practice, or the contract be discharged by mutual consent or by rule of Court, the clerk may be bound to another attorney or solicitor, and serve the residue of the term with him (s. 13).

There is some alteration with regard to the time and mode of registering the execution of the contract. When a clerk is bound, the master shall within six months make and swear, or cause to be made and sworn, an affidavit of his own due admission and of the actual execution of the contract by himself and the clerk; which affidavit shall specify his own and the clerk's name, and their places of abode, and the day of

the actual execution of the contract, and shall be filed within six months (not three, as heretofore, under 22 Geo. II. c. 46, s. 34) next after the execution of the contract with and by the proper officer, who shall thereupon enrol and register the contract, and sign a memorandum of the day of filing the affidavit, upon the affidavit and upon the contract (s. 8); and if not filed within six months, the service shall reckon from the filing, unless a Court shall otherwise order (s. 9); and till it is produced so marked as aforesaid to the judge or Court to whom the clerk shall apply for admission, he cannot be admitted unless the Court or judge think fit to dispense with the production (s. 10). The officers for filing the affidavits are, at law-the Masters of the Bench, Pleas, and Exchequer, the chief clerk of the duchy chamber of Lancaster, at Westminster, the prothonotaries of the courts of the counties Palatine of Lancaster and Durham, or the deputies of the latter, or such others as the three chiefs may appoint; in Equitythe senior clerk of the Petty Bag Office, the chief clerk of duchy chambers of Lancaster or their deputies, and the registrars of the respective equity courts of Lancaster and Durham, or such others as the Master of the Rolls may appoint. These officers are to keep a book each, wherein shall be entered the substance of every affidavit, specifying names, dates, &c. which book shall be open to public inspection during office hours, without fee or reward (s. 20).

The principal alteration with regard to the examination is, that it is not to be confined to fitness and capacity, but to be also "touching the articles and service." The judges of the common law courts are to examine, or appoint examiners for attornies (ss. 15, 16); the Master of the Rolls is to examine, or to appoint examiners for solicitors (s. 17); or both may jointly appoint examiners, and make rules and regulations for conducting the examinations of persons applying to be admitted as attornies or solicitors. If the clerk pass the ехаRolls, as to the Court of

mination, "the Master of the Chancery, and one of the judges as to the said courts of law at Westminster, shall, and he is hereby authorized to administer, or cause to be administered to such person, the oath hereinafter directed to be taken by solicitors and attornies, in addition to the oath of allegiance, and after such oaths taken

to cause him to be admitted an attorney and solicitor, and his name to be enrolled," &c. &c. The oath alluded to is merely the former one, as to demeaning one's self truly and honestly in the profession, according to the best of his skill and knowledge (s. 19). After admission, the several officers for filing the affidavits in the law and equity courts respectively are to enrol the name of the attorney or solicitor respectively, in alphabetical order, with the date of admission, in a book to be kept for the purpose, and open gratuitously to public inspection (s. 20).

In the provisions with regard to the oaths to be taken previous to admission, there seems to be a want of definiteness which may lead to penal actions against parties not taking oaths enough. From the wording of the clause it would seem that attornies and solicitors need take only the oaths of allegiance and good conduct; but as there is no express provision that they need not take any other oaths, it may be supposed that they will be liable to prosecution if they do not take the antiPopery oaths or the Roman Catholic oath. Perhaps the clause, as it now stands, will receive the same construction as the analogous clause in the Reform Act; which provided that electors should be allowed to vote on answering the three questions at the poll, and was therefore held to dispense with the necessity of taking the oaths required by the relief act or the statutes for preventing the growth of Popery. However, this should not lull parties into possibly a false security, as the decisions on the Reform Act have been by committees of the House of Commons, and simply on the question whether the vote was good or bad-and the result might be different if an action or prosecution were instituted for the penalties incurred by not taking the oaths in time. We should say, under all the circumstances, that those who wish to be safe should take all the oaths required by the other existing statutes. The whole provision seems very clumsy; if the object were to dispense with the necessity of taking the other oaths, this ought to have been distinctly stated.

The 28th section very supererogatorily provides, that no

1 We know no more ludicrous or reprehensible ceremony than the taking of these oaths, as any one who has attended in the Bail Court during the administering of them will agree.