ment of the livery stables charge, and Bennett's man happening at that moment to come up was asked what the charge would be, and replied 6d. This the defendant's man refused to pay, although he had 1s. 6d. in his pocket. He and the railway porter and Bennett's man then went together to the stables, and the defendant's man demanded the horse, which Bennett, the livery stable keeper, said he might have on payment of 1s. 6d. This he refused to pay, and further refused to pay anything, accompanying such refusal with insolent language; upon which Bennett said he should not have the horse except upon payment of 2s. 6d., being the full and usual charge for a horse's keep for a night. On the following morning, the 6th July, the defendant himself came to the station and asked Mason, the station master, why his man had not been allowed to take the horse away, to which Mason replied he supposed it was because his man had refused to pay the stable charges. Mason, in his evidence in chief, stated further as follows: "I tried to persuade the defendant to take the horse away, and pay Bennett's charge. He declined, and said he would not recognise Bennett at all, but offered to pay any demand of the company if I would give him a proper receipt. I said the company's demands had been met by payment in London, and we had no further demand to make. He still declined to pay Bennett, and I, thinking it would be a pity for him to go away without the horse, after coming some sixteen miles for it, said rather than he should go away without the horse, I would pay the charges out of my own pocket. He then declared he would have nothing to do with it, and went away." Mason, in his cross-examination said, "I told him (the defendant) if he would pay Bennett, Bennett would give him a receipt, and if he left the receipt with me I would represent the case to our superintendent. This was with a view to get the money from the company which the defendant should pay Bennett." On his re-examination Mason stated that his offer to pay Bennett's charge out of his own pocket was to avoid trouble, and was not made on the part of the company, as likewise his offer to represent the case to the superintendent. Afterwards, on the same day, the 6th July, the defendant wrote to the general manager of the plaintiffs at King's-cross, and, after referring to what had taken place that morning and the previous evening, stated that he left the horse on the company's hands, and claimed £21 for the price of the horse, his own and man's loss of time and expenses to Sandy £1 10s., altogether £22 10s. To this Mason, the station master at Sandy, replied on the 8th July as follows:

The Great Northern Railway, Sandy, July 8, 1872. Sir,-I am instructed by our superintendent to deliver the horse consigned to you from London, on Friday last, without payment of the livery charges, but at the same time to inform you that we shall look to you for payment of the same. You can therefore have the horse for sending for, and perhaps you will inform me, per bearer, at what time you will come or send for it. Yours obediently, J. MASON.

Mr. Swaffield, Wootton, near Bedford. This led to the three following letters :

Wootton, July 8, 1872.

Sir, I am in receipt of your letter of to-day's date respecting the delay in delivery of my horse, and beg to say I will not come to Sandy any more after him, but if you choose to deliver him at my farm, at Wootton, by 1 o'clock to-morrow afternoon, free of expense, also pay my expenses, 30s., for loss of time and delay in delivery of horse. Under these circumstances, and no other, will I receive him. I am leaving home to-morrow for three days, and if you accept my terms

he must be delivered before I leave.-Yours obediently,

Mr. Mason, Sandy.

S. J. SWAFFIELD.

The Great Northern Railway, Sandy Station, 9th July 1872. SIR,-In reply to yours of last evening. I am further instructed by our superintendent to inform you that the horse will remain at the stables entirely at your risk and expense, and that we disclaim any liability whatever I am, Sir, yours truly J. MASON.

Mr. S. J. Swaffield, Wootton, near Bedford.

Wootton, 12th July, 1872.

SIR.-I am in receipt of yours of the 10th inst., and as the company refuse the conditions on which I agreed to accept the horse, I have now placed the matter in the hands of my solicitor.-Yours, obediently,

Mr. Mason, Sandy.

S. J. SWAFFIeld.

This last letter was followed up by the defendant commencing an action in the Exchequer on the 30th of the same month against the company for non-delivery, conversion, and wrongful detainer of his horse, and by his declaration, filed the 26th Oct. 1872, he claimed, besides return of the horse, or its value, £10 for its detention, and £100 damages.

On the 18th of the following month, November, the company delivered up the horse to the defendant without any further demand on his part, sending it by one of their porters to his residence at Wootton, and the defendant received it, telling the porter he would take to it, and the company, on so voluntarily delivering the horse to the defendant, made no claim for payment of any livery charges.

On the 17th Feb. last, they also voluntarily

paid these charges to Bennett amounting to £17, for livery of the horse from the 5th July to the 18th Nov. 1872, at 17s. 6d. per week, and this is the sum they now seek to recover from the de. fendant. Meanwhile they pleaded to his action in the Ex. chequer, and paid £3 10s. into court in respect of his claim for damages, and the action came on to be heard at the assizes at Bedford, on the 22nd July last, before Mr. Baron Bramwell and a common jury, when a verdict was found for the company, which Mr. Baron Bramwell declared to be a capital verdict, adding that if the jury had found the other way, he should have directed a verdict for the company, because he was quite clear that after that offer on the next day, meaning the offer by Mason, the station master, to pay the livery charges to enable the defendant to take the horse away, they did not detain.

In the course of his summing up, the learned judge arimadverted somewhat strongly on the conduct of the defendant, the plaintiff in the action against the company, and intimated that it was the duty of the owner of the horse to have somebody there to receive it when it arrived, and that if he had no one there, the company not only had a right, but were bound to conduct them selves in a reasonable way towards the horse, and that it was reasonable to put it in the livery stable; and also that the livery stable keeper's demand of 2s. 6d. was reasonable, and if those two things were reasonable, then in his opinion the action was not maintainable. He likewise observed that the station master seemed to be the only reasonable person in the case, and showed his good sense when he offered to pay the money, but he would, he further observed, have done better if he had said, "I will give you any receipt you like" (although he could not properly give one), and better still, if he had put the messenger on the horse and sent it to the plaintiff's door, and let him make the best of it.

I also cannot but say that it is very lamentable that all this litigation should have arisen out of a refusal by the defendant's man to pay the sum of 6d. on the evening of the 5th July, and a further refusal by the defendant himself the following morning to take the horse away, and accept the station master's offer of payment of the livery charge out of his own pocket; nor do I think such a litigation very creditable to our system of law, but such considerations cannot absolve me from deciding upon the strict rights of the parties according to the best of my ability and my views of the principles of our law.

The question, therefore, is whether the plaintiffs, the company, are after what has occurred, entitled to recover from the defendant the money, £17 they of their own accord paid to Bennett for the livery of the horse, which they also voluntarily delivered to the defendant; and I am, although very desirous of deciding in their favour, unable to arrive at the conclusion that they are legally so entitled. They seem to me to have precluded themselves from the recovery of this money by their own acts.

The pleader appears to have felt the difficulty of the case, for the plaint is not framed in any ordinary form, for the recovery of money paid at the defendant's request, or to his use, but bases the claim on the peculiar ground of the verdict of the jury in the action at the assizes having proved that the horse had been wrongfully refused to be received by the defendant. That verdict does not in my opinion prove this, supposing even that any one of the company's pleas includes such wrongful refusal, which I much doubt. That verdict proves that there was no conversion or wrongful detainer by the company in accordance with the opinion expressed by the very learned judge who tried the action, but it leaves, as seems to me, the question of wrongful refusal by the defendant wholly untouched, and I am at a loss to understand how it could prove that the defendant wrongfully refused to receive what he ultimately did receive on the voluntary delivery of the company. It is true that he at first refused to receive the horse on the terms proposed by the stationmaster verbally, and I think with Baron Bramwell, with much good sense on the 6th July, and afterwards in writing by his letter of the 8th July; but the company did not act on that letter, they neither then delivered nor tendered the delivery of the horse, and they afterwards delivered it without insisting on those terms, and the defendant received it as so delivered. After this the company cannot, I think, treat that delivery and receipt as nullities, and fall back on the defendant's former refusal-a refusal when their claim against him, supposing they could establish it, was a mere trifle, and, on the ground of that refusal being wrongful, establish against him a claim of the present large amount, running over several months and up to the time of his receiving the horse on their own voluntary delivery without making any such claim. Whether his former refusal to receive the horse was in strict law wrongful depends upon whether he was liable to Bennett, he having refused to receive the horse if required to pay the livery charges. Here,

again, the company appear to me to have of them. selves decided the question in the defendant's favour. They voluntarily paid the charges after having allowed them to accumulate over several months, if they were Bennett's debtors and legally bound to pay him, they cannot under the circumstances sue the defendant for the money as paid at his request, express or implied, or to his use. Neither can they do so if the defendant could be considered legally Bennett's debtor (and I cannot understand how he could be, for he neither placed the horse at livery nor came under any undertaking to pay for it), inasmuch as it is quite clear that the debt was not paid at his re quest, express or implied; and it is an estab. lished principle of law that no assumpsit will be raised by the mere voluntary payment of the debt of another person, and no man can become the creditor without his knowledge or consent. But then Mr. Aspinall, who argued the case with much ability on the part of the com. pany, contended as to the first of these points that the defendant by not being at the station to receive the horse obliged the company to incur the expenses of its keep, and as those expenses were only reasonable, they were entitled to recover them as properly incurred. Upon the authority of the cases Brown v. Gaudet, cargo_ex_ Argos before the Privy Council reported in 28 L. T. Rep. N. S. 745, where a shipowner was held entitled to recover the expense of bringing back to London a cargo of petroleum shipped with him at London for Havre, but which he was forbidden by the French authorities to deliver at that port. But that case seems to me to be very distinguishable from the present. The shipowner had done nothing to invalidate his claim, and there is nothing in the present case in the nature of the compensation there claimed and allowed for bringing back the goods, whilst the goods were only delivered up to the owner of them on payment of the wharf charges and expenses consequent on their deposit when brought back to Plaistow Wharf. According to that case, so far as it at all affects the present, the company should not have delivered up the horse but upon payment of the livery charges, instead of first delivering it and then seeking to recover the charges. Supposing them entitled to recover them at all, and that such a case as the present falls within the prin ciple of shipowners being bound in cases of emergency and accident to act in the best manner, for the safety of the cargo, and, as a correlative right, are entitled to charge its owner with the expenses properly incurred in so doing, I think that even upon that supposition the company in this case have, by their own acts, rendered that principle inapplicable to them and that they cannot now maintain this suit.

Judgment for the defendant but no costs.

BANKRUPTCY LAW.

NOTES OF NEW DECISIONS. PARTNERSHIP-BANKRUPTCY OF ONE PARTNER -SALE OF BOOK DEBTS AND GOODWILL BY PRIVATE CONTRACT.-The 72nd section of the Bankruptcy Act 1869 gives the Court of Bankruptcy a very large authority to decide such questions as it may be found necessary or con venient to determine for the proper purpose of administration in bankruptcy, but it does not enable the Court of Bankruptcy to draw compul. sorily within the sphere of its jurisdiction property, or the owners of property, not vested in the assignee, and not originally subject to the administration in bankruptcy. In 1864 a decree was made in a suit for the dissolution of a part. nership, by which it was ordered that the partner. ship business should be sold by public auction. In the following year one of the partners was adjudicated bankrupt. In 1869, no sale having been made under the decree, the assignee of the bankrupt partner agreed to sell his share in the business to the other partners, and the agreement

was carried into effect under an order of the Court of Chancery. On application to the Court of Bankruptcy by newly appointed assignees of the bankrupt partner to set aside the sale on the ground of alleged fraud: Held (reversing the decision of the Chief Judge in Bankruptcy), that the alleged fraud was not proved, but that if the sale of the bankrupt's share of the partnership assets was set aside, the Court of Bankruptcy would have no power' under the 72nd section of the Act of 1869 to work out the decree in the Chancery suit for the sale of the whole partner ship business, including the shares of the solvent partners. Held, also, that the book debts and goodwill of a dissolved partnership, of which only one partner is bankrupt and the others continue solvent, are not assets distributable in the bankruptcy, and that the sale of the bankrupt's share in such property is not a sale of book debts or goodwill" within the meaning of the 137th section of the Bankruptcy Act 1851, and that there is nothing in that provision to prevent the assignee

of the bankrupt partner from selling the bankrupt's share by private contract without the sanction of the Court of Bankruptcy: (Maule v. Davis, 29 L. T. Rep. N. S. 757. Chan.)

PARTNERSHIP-SEPARATE ADJUDICATION IN

ENGLAND SUBSEQUENT JOINT ADJUDICATION IN IRELAND-JOINT ASSETS IN ENGLAND.-TWO partners carried on business in England and Ireland. One of the partners executed an assignment in England for the benefit of his creditors, and was afterwards adjudicated a bankrupt in England. Some of the joint estate of the partners came into the hands of the trustees of the deed, who sold it, and the proceeds of sale were, under the order of the court, deposited in a bank in the joint names of the trustees of the deed and the trustee in the bankruptcy. Before this was done, a joint adjudication of bankruptcy had been made against the two partners in Ireland. On an application by the Irish assignees of the joint estate to have the proceeds of sale paid over to them: Held, that the trustee under the separate adjudication in England, and the assignees under the joint adjudication in Ireland, were tenants in common of the joint assets, and that the latter had no better title to the proceeds of the sale in question than the former. And the application was refused on that ground, and also on the ground of convenience, as the greater number of the joint creditors lived in England and wished the fund in question to remain in this country: (Ex parte

THE RIGHT HON. SIR SAMUEL MARTIN.-The ex-Baron of the Exchequer, Sir Samuel Martin, having been sworn in a Privy Councillor, will forthwith take his seat on the Judicial Committee.

HON. REVERDY JOHNSON has been retained

by Attorney-General Williams as special assistant to the Attorney-General in controversies between the Government and the various telegraph companies.

THE JUDICATURE ACT.-Mr. G. M. Dowdeswell, Q.C., will read a paper on Monday evening next, the 9th inst., at a meeting of the Law Amendment Society, to be held at their rooms in Adam-street, Adelphi, on "The Rules of Prac tice and Procedure to be framed under the Judicature Act 1873."

:

THE NEW QUEEN'S COUNSEL.-The following is the list of barristers to whose applications for the silk gown a favourable reply has, we under stand, been returned by the Lord Chancellor :Mr. Charles Clark, of the House of Lords; Mr. Arthur Cohen, Mr. Murphy, and Mr. S. Joyce, of the Home Circuit; Mr. Waddy, of the Midland Circuit; and Mr. R. G. Williams and Mr. Charles H. Hopwood, of the Northern Circuit; and Mr. T. E. Winslow, Mr. T. Waller. Mr. W. R. G. Bagshawe, Mr. W. Pearson, Mr. John Westlake, Equity Bar. Mr. Joseph Chitty, and Mr. A. G. Marten, of the

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force, elevation of tone, sincerity of principle, and consistency;" third, his political record and questionable position respecting constitutional questions growing out of the war.' The first two were but slightly pressed, and were undoubtedly thrown in for relief. The third was the one that came most strongly home to the bosoms of his opponents. It was gravely asserted that his accession to the high office "would imperil the nation," would lead to an overthrow of all the good results brought about by the war," and "would defeat the very objects to accomplish which the Republican party was formed." This was conceding to a Chief Justice a power which he never has had in this country, and which he is never likely to have. The Chief Justice is but one of nine, and in the determination of any ques tion presented to the court of no greater influence than any of his associates. The present Supreme Bench is largely Republican, and entirely com. mitted to the great constitutional reforms which that party inaugurated, and there is scarcely a possibility that the complexion of the court on these questions will be changed during the few years that remain to Mr. Cushing. So that any cry of danger either to the nation or to universal liberty and civil rights was nothing, but a ridículous bugbear.-Albany Law Journal.

and present members of the Northern Circuit en

Chan.)

COURT OF BANKRUPTCY.

Saturday, Jan. 31.

Chief Judge).

Ex parte NICOLL; Re NICOLL. Solicitor's costs-Right to prove for. THIS was an appeal from an order of Mr. Registrar Keene, whereby he refused to register a resolution of creditors.

De Gex, Q. C., and Bagley appeared for the appellant: Brough for Messrs. Frege and Co.; and Finlay Knight for other creditors.

The debtor, Mr. Donald Nicoll, carried on busi. ness at 58 and 59, Paternoster-row, as a wholesale clothier and warehouseman. Some weeks since he filed a petition for liquidation by arrangement, his debts and liabilities being stated at £58,453, with assets, inclusive of a surplus from securities in the hands of creditors fully secured, £20,391. At the first meeting of creditors, held on the 28th Nov. a resolution was passed for the acceptance of a composition of 78. in the pound, payable by instalments, and at the adjourned meeting, which was held shortly afterwards, the resolution was confirmed; but, upon the matter being brought before the registrar, he upheld objections made to certain of the proofs, and declined to register the resolution on the ground that the necessary majority in number of the creditors had not assented thereto. The debtor appealed, and the material points involved seemed to be whether a solicitor was entitled to prove and vote in respect of an untaxed but admitted debt for costs, and whether a creditor who had appointed a proxy could, after the meeting of creditors, sign a resolution in favour of a composition, his proxy having, at the meeting, signed a "protest" against its acceptance.

His HONOUR, at the close of the arguments, held that a solicitor was entitled to prove and vote under liquidation proceedings in respect of costs, although the bill might not have been taxed at the time, and that the signature of the "protest" by the proxy did not operate so as to prevent the creditor from signing the resolution before registration.

The result of the order will be to render the resolution effectual.

LEGAL NEWS.

PRIVATE BILLS.-The dissolution of Parliament does not affect the preliminary proceedings of private Bills, for the introduction of which notices have been duly given. The examiners will proceed to examine these bills regularly, and no additional fees will be required.

FRENCH CRIMINAL LAW.-Two prisoners in France, a man and woman, having been convicted of forging notes of the Bank of France, have been sentenced, respectively, to ten years' imprisonment, and penal servitude for life. There were extenuating facts in the case of the male pri

soner.

SANITARY LAW.-The Lords of the Council have ordered that the provisions for the prevention of diseases contained in part 3 of the Act, 30 & 31 Vict. cap. 101, be coutinued in force in Scotland for the space of three calendar months, after the 29th Jan. 1874, as the United Kingdom appears to be threatened with cholera.

THE STAMP ACT.-An "Ex-Conveyancer" in that out of more than fifty stamped receipts, examined by him, only sixteen out of them were cancelled legally, so that thirty-four penalties of £10 had been incurred, and at least £64 had been without legal evidence of payment! An adhesive required by law to cancel such adhesive stamp cancels the same by writing on or across the stamp his name or initials, or the name or initials of his firm, together with the true date of his so writing." An easy process which should be observed. In reply to this a "Solicitor" in the Times, citing as his authority, the 24th section of the Stamp Act (33 & 34 Vict. c. 97), alleges that, it is unnecessary that adhesive stamped receipts should bear the date of cancellation. He submits that the signing of the name to a receipt over an adhesive stamp is sufficient to satisfy this statute, although the case may be otherwise where the stamp is placed at the corner or any part of the receipt except that where the receipt is signed.

He

THE UNITED STATES' SUPREME COURT.The nomination of Morrison R. Waite, of Ohio, as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States was confirmed by the Senate on the 21st Jan. without any opposition, the Democrats as well as the Republicans voting for him. This is an agreeable ending to a political difficulty which it was at one time feared might result in a quarrel between the President and the Senate. The new Chief Justice is a native of Lyme, Connecticut, and was born in 1816. He graduated at Yale College in 1837, in the same class with William M. Evarts and Edwards Pierrepoint, receiving equal class honours with them. removed to Ohio, and began the practice of law in 1839, ultimately making Toledo his home. It appears that he was first brought into public life by Secretary Delano, of President Grant's cabinet, at whose suggestion he was appointed one of the American counsel before the Geneva Arbitrators. His course of conduct at Geneva was generally commended, and on returning home he was elected a member of the Convention which is revising the Ohio State Constitution, of which body he is the president. There is no doubt of his legal abilities or of his fitness to hold the first judicial position in the United States. The Hon. Caleb Cushing, after some little hesitation, has finally decided to accept the post of American Minister to Madrid, and is preparing for his departure.-Times correspondent.

THE CHIEF JUSTICESHIP OF THE UNITED STATES.-The unfortunate muddle with regard to the Chief Justiceship continues. In compliance with a letter from Mr. Williams, in which that gentleman talked about "the flood-gates of calumny" and like nonsense, the President with. drew bis nomination. On Friday week he sent to the Senate the name of Mr. Caleb Cushing. This nomination created, if anything, more astonishment than that of Mr. Williams. It seemed likely at first that Mr. Cushing would be confirmed without delay and without serious opposition, and the Judiciary Committee were nearly unanimous in favour of it. But very soon a strong opposition began to manifest itself both among members of Congress and throughout the country, Prominent administration papers denounced the nomination, and the New York Times declared that in case of its confirmation "a great danger will menace the nation and a lasting disgrace will be attached to President Grant's second term." The intellectual and professional qualifications of Mr. Cushing are conceded, but the objections urged were, first, his advanced age; second, his alleged deficiency in what is termed "moral

BANQUET TO SIR SAMUEL MARTIN.-The old tertained Sir Samuel Martin at dinner at the large gathering of "Northerners" to do honour to their old chief, and among those assembled were Lord Justice Mellish, Mr. Justice Blackburn, Mr. Justice Brett, Baron Cleasby, Mr. Jus lock, the Hon. A. Liddell, 'Q.C., Sir Thomas tice Quain, Sir Lawrence Peel, Sir Frederick PolHenry, Sir Henry Holland, Mr. Holker, Q.C., Mr. Aspinall, Q.C., Mr. J. A. Russell, Q.C., Mr. Vernon Lushington, Q.C., Mr. Kemplay, Q.C., Mr. Temple, Q.C., Mr. Herschell, Q.C., Mr. Pope, C., Mr. Aston, Q.C., Mr. Torr, Q.C., Mr. Littler, Q.C., Dr. Spinks, Q.C., Mr. Serjeant Wheeler, Master G. F. Pollock, Mr. Corrie, Mr. Ingham, Mr. Arnold, Mr. Bigg, Mr. Hannay, Mr. Blair, Mr. Whigham, Mr. Barstow, Mr. Foard, Mr. Hugh Shield, Mr. R. G. Williams, Mr. Ed. wards, Mr. J. Shiel, Mr. J. E. Hill, Mr. Baxter, Mr. C. Coleman, Mr. Wood, Mr. M'Connell, Mr. Tredfall, &c. The coming elections caused the absence of several members of the circuit who were desirous of being present, but of all those who had acquired judicial rank on the circuit Lord Penzance was the only absentee. The chair was taken by Mr. Pickering, Q.C,, and the toast of the evening, "Health and Long Life to Sir Samuel Martin, was enthusiastically drunk. ninety gentlemen sat down to the dinner, which Nearly was worthy the occasion.

NOTES AND QUERIES ON POINTS OF PRACTICE. NOTICE.-We must remind our correspondents that this column is not open to questions involving points of law such as a solicitor should be consulted upon. Queries will be excluded which go beyond our limits.

N.B.-None are inserted unless the name and address of the

writers are sent, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee for bona fides.

Queries.

61. APPARENT POSSESSION.-A considerable quantity of furniture and valuable plate is purchased by a lady married previously to the 9th August 1870 (without any marriage settlement), with her money. Her husband, who is in a large way of business, and at present perfectly solvent, without these effects, wishes this furniture and plate to be settled upon her so as to protect it against the sheriff or assignees in Bankruptcy in case of any unlucky contingency. How can this be done without registering the settlement under the Bills of Sale Act, which would injure his credit, in apparent possession of the furniture? It is appre seeing that the husband living with his wife would be hended that delivery of an article of furniture to the settlement trustees in the name of the whole would not be a sufficient delivery. Cases will oblige.

W.

(Q. 59.) TRUSTS-EXECUTION BY DEVISE.-The 23 & 24 appointment of new trustees, but I do not see that it Vict. c. 145, s. 27, contains a general provision for the authorises or even permits a devise by the surviving trustee to be construed as an appointment of the devisee as trustee. It is expressly laid down by able writers, and supported by numerous cases, that a naked power given to trustees or the survivors of them cannot be the property had been vested in the heirs and assigns exercised by a devisee of the surviving trustee. If of the survivor, then a devisee by will, but not an assign by deed, could execute the trust. T. E. H.

LEGAL EXTRACTS.

THE JUDICATURE COMMISSION AND THE IRISH COUNTY COURTS. Report on the Application of the Principles recommended by the Judicature Commission to the Irish County Courts, by Mr. CONSTANTINE MOLLOY.

[Read before the Statistical Society of Ireland.] SINCE the subject of this report was entrusted to me, the principles recommended by the Judicature Commission have received the sanction of the Legislature and become law; and the year that has just now closed will always form a memorable epoch in the legal history of the empire, signalised as it has been by the accomplishment, in a single session of Parliament, of one of the most beneficial legal reforms ever effected. The fusion of legal and equitable principles, the simplification of law, and the preference for equitable principles over ancient statutes and harsh rules, secured for England by the Judicature Act of 1873, must produce an improvement in the administration of justice, the importance of which it would be difficult to over-estimate.

In this great legal reform Ireland is not, as yet, entitled to participate. Her right, as an integral portion of the United Kingdom, to have extended to her every beneficial reform effected for the sister kingdom is unquestionable, and is especially so in whatever requires the due administration of justice, and the prompt and efficacious enforcement of civil rights, so that the extension to this country of the great legal reform of 1873 may be regarded as a mere matter of time. Desirable as it is in the case of the superior courts, the importance and urgency of extending it to the inferior courts, are still more manifest, for the humbler the suitor is, and the less aided he is by legal assistance in his dealings, the more necessary it is that he should be able to obtain full and complete justice in one court; and the greater is the benefit conferred when law is freed from unnecessary complications and framed in accordance with principles of natural equity, which are intelligible to all.

In Scotland, when in the middle of the eighteenth century, nearly all the hereditary jurisdictions were abolished, it became necessary to substitute some power of administering justice in each district, and, accordingly, a local tribunal, known as the Sheriff's Court, was established. This court has now civil jurisdiction of a very complete and extensive nature. It can entertain all questions relating to removables, and all questions of possession, even although these may involve the consideration of titles to real property, and questions between landlord and tenant. Its jurisdiction also embraces admiralty questions, and those relating to wills and bankruptcy. In a word, it affords to all a ready, local, and complete remedy, under forms which make it easy of access, economical, and satisfactory.

The Irish County Court was first established by a statute of the Irish Parliament towards the close of the last century, long before a similar court was instituted for England; and from the first establishment of these local tribunals in Ireland and in England, various measures have been, from time to time, passed for their improvement; but although the Irish County Court was first started, the English County Court has been suffered to outstep in the race of improvement its Irish prototype. Unfavourable as the contrast at present is between the Irish and the English County Courts, as means of administering justice, that contrast will become still more marked after the 2nd of next Nov., when the time will arrive for applying to all matters within the cognisance of the English County Court, the new and enlightened rules of law enacted by the Judicature Act of last Bession.

The English County Court has power to try all actions of contract or tort, where the debt, whether on a balance or otherwise, or the damage claimed does not exceed £50, except actions of libel, slander, seduction, malicious prosecution, breach of promise of marriage. It can also try any claim for the recovery of any demand not exceeding £50, which is the whole or part of the unliquidated balance of a partnership account, or the amount of a distributive share under an intestacy, or of any legacy under a will. It has also jurisdiction in any action of ejectment on the title, where the value of the lands, or the rent payable in respect thereof, does not exceed £20 by the year, and also in any action in which the title to any corporeal or incorporeal hereditaments is in question, where neither the value of the lands, tenements, or hereditaments, in dispute, nor the rent payable in respect thereof exceeds the sum of £20 by the year; and also in case of any easements or license, where neither the value or the reserved rent of the lands, tenements, or hereditaments, in respect of which the license or easement is claimed, or on, through, or over which, easement or licence is claimed, exceeds £20 by the

year.

advancement of infants.

8. The dissolution of partnership.

9. Accounts. 10. Partition.

In the suits or matters within its equity juris. diction, the County Court has and can exercise all the powers and authority of the Court of Chancery.

While the English County Court was thus from time to time improved-its authority extended to classes of cases that were not originally within its province, while it was made a court of equity, with all the powers of the High Court of Chancery, and thus enabled to do full and complete justice between the parties in any matter within its jurisdiction-the Irish County Court has made but little advance in the way of improvement. True it is that the statute under which it is at present constituted declares that it shall be lawful for the chairman "to hear and determine all disputes and differences between party and party for any sum, damages or penalty, not exceeding £40 sterling (slander, libel, breach of promise of marriage, and criminal conversation excepted), and for any unascertained and unpaid balance not exceeding £40 of a partnership account;" and also to decree payment of any pecuniary legacy not exceeding £20, payable out of any personal estate, whatever may be the amount of such personal estate; and also to decree the payment of any legacies or distributive shares, payable out of the assets of any deceased person, where the assets shall not exceed £200; and the chairman has also jurisdiction in ejectments between landlord and tenant, where the rent of the holding does not exceed £100; and in cases of ejectment on the title, his jurisdiction is confined to cases where the parties claim under a common title, and the rent of the lands sought to be recovered does not exceed £20 a year, and are held under a yearly tenancy, or under a lease, the duration of which, when originally granted, did not exceed three lives, without any provision for the renewal thereof; or for a term of sixtyone years, and in respect of which no fine exceeding £20 shall appear on the face of such lease to have been paid on the granting or execution thereof. The statute, while it confers in these cases jurisdiction in ejectments on the title, declares expressly that in other cases the title to lands, tenements, and hereditaments, shall not be drawn into question in any proceeding in the court.

It is unnecessary to enter into further detail for the purpose of contrasting the power and authoeity of the local courts in the three kingdoms as tribunals for administering justice. The fore. going brief and necessarily incomplete summary is sufficient to show how far the Irish County Court has been permitted to lag behind in the progress of improvement. Scarcely a sitting of the court is held in any part of the country at which one or more cases do not occur where some suitor applies to the court for relief, to redress some wrong or enforce some right, and after expense, which to the humble suitor is considerable, has been incurred, and the time of the court has been, it may be for hours, occupied in ascertaining the exact nature of the matter in dispute, it is then discovered that all this expense, time, and trouble have been merely wasted-that the case is not within their jurisdiction, and the court is unable te enforce the right or redress the wrong.

The matter in dispute may be about an obstruction of a watercourse or a right of way, or an interference with a right of turbary, or some one of those questions that commonly arise between the occupiers of small holdings; but if the rent of the holdings in respect of which the dispute arises, or the value of the right disputed be great or small, once a question of title is found to be involved, the jurisdiction of the court is ousted, and the suitor learns, to his surprise, that the court is powerless to afford him redress, and that if he wishes to obtain it he must seek it in the superior court, where the matter will be decided, after delay and at an expense that will most probably be ruinous to one, if not to both of the litigants. Every day experience shows what is frequently the result of the Irish County Court not having jurisdiction to deal with this class of cases. Men of humble means, seeing the expense with which the defence of their rights is attended in the superior courts, will not have recourse to the law to vindi

of cool temper, able to restrain himself under the infliction of wrong, advantage may be taken of this by the wrongdoer to provoke him, and so get. him involved in a breach of the peace, and then have him punished, it may be by imprisonment; and when this happens, things not unfrequently go from bad to worse; evil passions are aroused, and what was originally a dispute about some small matter, sometimes ends in the perpetration of a fearful crime.

Where the question in dispute is too small to bear the cost and delay of a resort to the superior courts, justice and sound pelicy alike require that jurisdiction in such cases should be conferred on the local court. In such cases, resort is seldom had to the superior courts; parties are deterred by the expense, and, as already observed, rights are either abandoned or attempted to be maintained by force; and one of the most salutary reforms that can be effected for the benefit of the humbler classes of the community is to confer on the Irish County Court the same power which the English County Court now possesses—of hearing and determining disputes where small questions of title are involved.

Even before the Judicature Act of 1873 gave effect to the principles recommended by the Judicature Commissioners in their reports, the English County Courts, as has been already shown, were far in advance of the Irish. But the Judicature Act of 1873 does not confine the applica tion of those enlightened principles to the superior courts, but at once extends them to every court.

The 91st section of the statute declares that "The several rules of law enacted and declared by this Act shall be in force and receive effect in all courts whatsoever in England, so far as the matters to which such rules relate shall be respectively cognizable by such courts;" and the 89th enacts that " Every inferior court which now has, or which may, after the passing of this Act have, jurisdiction in equity or at law, and in equity and in admiralty, respectively, shall, as regards all causes of action within its jurisdiction for the time being, have power to grant, and shall grant in any proceeding before such court such relief, redress, or remedy, or combination of remedies, either absolute or conditional, and shall in every such proceeding give such and the like effect to every ground of defence or counterclaim, equitable or legal, in as full and ample a manner as might and ought to be done in the like case by the high court of justice."

The rules of law declared by the Judicature Act are contained in the 24th and 25th sections of the statute, and may be thus briefly stated, viz., that law and equity shall be concurrently administered, and that whenever there is any conflict or variance between the rules of equity and the rules of the common law, with reference to the same matter, the rules of equity shall prevail.

The English law was introduced into Ireland, and courts of justice in conformity with the laws of England were established, as early as the reign of King John-upwards of 650 yoars ago and close upon three centuries afterwards all the then existing statute law of England was extended to Ireland by Poyning's Act; and in 1782, when the Irish Parliament asserted its legislative independence and repealed Poyning's Act, the Irish Parliament, in passing statute known as Yelverton's Act, recorded its opinion on the question of the assimilation of the laws of the two countries. The preamble to Yelverton's Act, recites that “a similarity of laws, measures, and customs must necessarily conduce to strengthen and perpetuate that affection and harmony which do and at all times ought to subsist between the people of Great Britain and Ireland;" and accordingly, by that statute, in pursuance of the policy of assimi lating the laws of the two countries, the provisions of a considerable portion of the statute law of England were extended to Ireland.

In 1862 the English and Irish Law and Chancery Commission was appointed, consisting of Lord Romilly, Lord Cairns, Lord O'Hagan, Lord Selborne, Chief Justice Monahan, Sir Joseph Napier, Mr. Justice Lawson and others, upon the question of assimilating the details of Irish and English law. The commissioners, after noting the fact that the practice and procedure in equity of the two countries, which were originally similar, had by modern legislation become almost entirely

different, and that this difference had been caused by separate attempts at carrying out Chancery reform in cach of the two countries, expressed the unanimous opinion that "it was of paramount importance to restore and preserve, as far as possible, a uniformity of system in the equity jurisprudence of the two countries," and that "the practice and procedure of the superior courts of common law in England and Ireland should, as far as practicable, be assimilated."

Parliament, so far as the courts of equity were concerned, adopted the opinion of the commis. sioners, by passing the Irish Chancery Act of 1867; and bills were brought in by successive law officers to carry out the assimilation of the practice and procedure of the courts of common law, which were finally postponed for the report of the Judicature Commission.

When the Judicature Act declares that certain enlightened and just rules shall be observed for the future as part of the law of England, in every court whatsoever in England, it is of paramount importance that the same salutary principles should be extended to this country, and in like manner be observed in every court whatsoever in Ireland. Thus will be best carried out that policy of assimilating the laws of the two countries, which was originated centuries ago, in the reign of King John-sanctioned and acted upon by the Irish Parliament, and approved of by the high authority of the commissioners already referred to.

While the Irish County Court possesses the public confidence, nevertheless, year after year, the demand for its improvement is becoming more urgent, as the defect in its power to decide completely various questions that arise, in cases where some humble suitors seek its intervention, becomes more manifest. The Irish Land Act has brought under legal cognizance tenant interests of great value. Formerly claims arising of such interests, and disputes between small tenants about rights of way, turbary fences, and other matters-fruitful sources of contention between neighbours, and which the Irish County Court has not jurisdiction to hear and determine-were settled by the agent and landlord, who exercised in such cases a species of unauthorised, but yet beneficial, jurisdiction. Their interference was quite optional. In some cases they declined to interfere; while in others, by their kindly interference, bitter disputes were settled, and injustice in many instances prevented. But all this is now changed, with the altered position of the parties, consequent on the passing of the Land Act. Landlords and agents will be very slow to interfere in disputes between tenant and tenant, but will rather leave such matters to be settled as best they can by the tribunals of the country; and hence it has latterly become a matter of paramount importance and urgency that the Irish County Court should now be enabled to deal with cases of this kind, which, owing to the smallness of the interest involved, are but rarely submitted to the superior courts, as they cannot bear the expense of a recourse to the latter courts.

While the Land Act recognises the necessity of a guardian ad litem being appointed in the cases of idiots, lunatics, and minors, it only provides for the appointment of such guardians for the purpose of any proceedings under that Act; but the permanent protection of the interest of tenants under leases and tenant-right usages requires a cheap machinery for appointing guardians of idiots, lunatics, and minors, and for making such guardians account.

By this Act of 1867 the Lord Lieutenant was empowered by order in council to confer a limited jurisdiction in Admiralty cases on the Irish local courts; but this power has not as yet been exercised. In 1868 the English County Courts' Admiralty Jurisdiction Act was passed, enabling Her Majesty in Council to confer a limited Admiralty jurisdiction upon the English County Courts; and both in 1868 and 1869 orders in council were issued conferring this Admiralty jurisdiction upon thirty-six of the English County Courts. The English Act of 1868 did not provide for cases of freight and demurrage; but in 1869 this omission was supplied by the statute 32 & 33 Vict. c. 51, which conferred in those cases a limited Admiralty jurisdiction upon the English County Courts. It is to be regretted that the policy of assimilation recommended by the Admiralty Commissioners in 1864, carried out by the Admiralty Act of 1867, was not acted upon in 1868 and 1869 when the English County Courts obtained their limited Admiralty jurisdiction, and the Irish County Court thereby enabled to afford the same redress to the foreign trader as he would be able to obtain in an English port, if business had brought his vessel to that country instead of to Ireland. Under the English Bankruptcy Act of 1867 the County Courts in England have a bankruptcy jurisdiction. The Irish County Courts up to 1873, had jurisdiction in insolvency; but that jurisdiction, except as to pending matters, ceased on the 1st Jan. 1873, when the Irish Bankruptcy Amendment Act 1872, came into operation. And even no matter how small the value of the bankrupt estate may happen to be, the Irish Connty Court has no jurisdiction in bankruptcy unless in cases which, after being proceeded with to a certain extent in the Court of Bankruptcy, are then remitted to the County Court, to be there dealt with, and after being so dealt with there is a right of appeal back to the Court of Bankruptcy. A great boon would be conferred both on small debtors and those who may have dealings with them, by conferring directly upon the Irish County Court a limited jurisdiction in bankruptcy.

LAW SOCIETIES.

LAW ASSOCIATION.

Ar the usual monthly meeting of the directors, held at the Hall of the Incorporated Law Society, in Chancery-lane, on Thursday, the 5th inst., the following being present, viz.: Mr. Desborough (chairman), Mr. Steward, Mr. Carpenter, Mr. Drew, Mr. Finch, Mr. Hedger, Mr. Park Nelson, Mr. Nisbet, Mr. Styan, Mr. Tylee, Mr. Vallance, Mr. W. Williamson, and Mr. Boodle (secretary), a grant of £10 was made to the widow of a nonmember, and the ordinary business was transacted.

ARTICLED CLERKS' SOCIETY. A MEETING of this society was held at Clement's Inn Hall on Wednesday, the 4th February, Mr. Francis I. Baker in the chair. Mr. Rubinstein moved, "That the suddenness with which Mr. Gladstone dissolved the late Parliament was perfectly unjustifiable." The motion was carried by a majority of six.

SOLICITORS' BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION. THE usual monthly meeting of the board of directors of this association was held on Wednesday, the 4th inst., Mr. Park Nelson in the chair. The other directors present were-Messrs. Hedger, Roscoe, Smith, Styan, Torr, Veley, and Williamsen; Mr. Eiffe, Secretary. A sum of £60 was distributed in grants of assistance to the families of five deceased solicitors who were not members of the association, three new members were admitted, and other general business transacted.

BRISTOL ARTICLED CLERKS' DEBATING

SOCIETY.

1n 1870, Mr. Henry Dix Hutton, in his Report on Admiralty jurisdiction, read before the society, called attention to complaints made by foreign traders, that while the Court of Admiralty in Ireland possessed jurisdiction to proceed against the masters of ships at the suit of merchants employing their vessels, it had no corresponding power of entertaining complaints by captains in respect of freight and demurrage-a state of things which caused delay, involving hardship, and not unfrequently a practical denial of justice. Strong representations on this unsatisfactory state of the law were made by some of the foreign consuls resident in Dublin to the Commissioners appointed A MEETING of this society was held in the Law to inquire into the High Court of Admiralty in Library, on Tuesday evening the 20th Jan., Henry Ireland, who sat in 1864; and while the commis- Brittan, Esq., solicitor, occupying the chair. It sioners, in their report, state that they do not was the second "open night " of the session, and think it expedient to extend the jurisdiction of Mr. Mosely opened in the affirmative on the folthe Admiralty Court to cases of freight and de- lowing question, "It is desirable that a court of murrage, because the effect would be to give the international arbitration be established; and if so, Irish Court a wider jurisdiction than that pos-imated discussion ensued. The affirmative was is it practicable ?" Mr. Laxton opposed, and an sessed by the English Admiralty Court, they are, at the same time, of opinion that the object should carried by the casting vote of the chairman. be to assimilate the jurisdiction of both courts, and that if such a jurisdiction were given to the English court, a corresponding jurisdiction should be also given to the Irish court.

THE annual general meeting of the proprietors of the London and County Bank was held on Following out the recommendations of the com- Thursday last, at the City Terminus Hotel, missioners in favour of assimilating the law of Cannon-street Station, when, after recommending both countries as to Admiralty jurisdiction, the a dividend of 10 per cent. for the half year, Court of Admiralty (Ireland) Act of 1867 was and carrying forward £23,917 17s. 3d., the passed, assimilating the Irish to the English juris-directors intimated their opinion that the 15,000 diction; but it did not make any provision for shares authorised by previous meetings should be trying cases of demurrage or freight. issued at £10 premium.

LEGAL OBITUARY.

NOTE.-This department of the LAW TIMES, is contributed

by EDWARD WALFORD, M.A., and late scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, and Fellow of the Genealogical and Historical Society of Great Britain; and, as it is desired to make it as perfect a record as possible, the families and friends of deceased members of the Profession will oblige by forwarding to the LAW TIMES Office any dates and materials required for a biographical notice.

W. RAINES, ESQ. THE late William Raines, Esq., of Wyton Hall, Yorkshire, Judge of the Hull and East Yorkshire County Courts, who died on the 28th ult., at his residence near Hull, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, was the eldest son of the late William Raines, Esq., of Wyton, by Fanny, only daughter of Marmaduke Browne, Esq. He was born in the year 1808, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, but did not graduate. He was called to the Bar by the hon. society of Lincoln's-inn in Trinity Term 1833, and went the Northern Circuit, having previously practised as a special pleader. He was a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant for the East Riding of Yorkshire, and also a magistrate for the North Riding of Yorkshire, and for the parts of Holland in the county of Lincoln. In March, 1847, he was appointed Judge of Circuit, No. 16, which holds its courts at Beverley, Bridlington, Great Driffield, Heden, Howdon, Kingston-upon-Hull, New Malton, Pocklington, Scarborough, Selby, and Whitby. In 1860 Mr. Raines raised a company of rifle volunteers, of which he acted as captain. He was the author of "A Letter to the late Right Hon. Lord Tenterden, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, on the Bill for Establishing Courts of Local Jurisdiction," published as far back as the year 1830; "Observations on the Bill, intituled, The Act for Establishing Local Courts of Jurisdiction," published in 1833; and "Observations on the Highway Act of 1861, and the Management of Highways, addressed to the ratepayers of Middle Holderness," published in 1864.

R. W. BLENCOWE, ESQ. THE late Richard Willis Blencowe, Esq., Chairman of the East Sussex Sessions, who died on the 23rd ult., at his residence, The Hooke, Chailey, near Lewes, in the eighty-third year of his age, was the eldest surviving son of the late Robert Willis Blencowe, Esq., by Penelope, youngest daughter of the late Sir George Robinson, Bart. He was born in the year 1791, and was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1814, and proceeded M.A. in due course. He was a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant for Kent, a deputy-lieutenant for Northamptonshire, and a magistrate for Sussex, and had for many years presided as Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the eastern division of the latter county. He married, in 1815, Charlotte, youngest daughter and coheir of the late Sir Henry Poole, Bart., of Poole Hall, Cheshire, and The Hooke, Sussex, and by her, who died in 1867, he has left an only son, Mr. John George Blencowe, a deputylieutenant for Sussex, and formerly M.P. for Lewes, who is married to the eldest daughter of the late William J. Campion, Esq., of Danny Park, Sussex.

LORD COLONSAY. THE late Right Hon. Duncan McNeill, Lord Colonsay, sometime Lord Justice General and President of the Court of Session of Scotland, the intelligence of whose death at Pau, in the Basses Pyrenees, has just been announced as having taken place on the 31st ult., was the eldest surviving son of the late John McNeill, Esq., of Colonsay, in the county of Argyll; his mother was Hester, eldest daughter of Duncan McNeill, Esq., of Dunmore, Argyllshire, and he was born at Colonsay in the year 1794, so that now he was in the eightieth year of his age. He received his University education at St. Andrew's, where he highly distinguished himself, and he afterwards studied at Edinburgh. In 1816 he became a member of the Scottish Bar, and soon made himself remarkable for the strict logic with which he analyzed, and not seldom demolished, the indictments in the Courts of Justiciary. This led to his being taken into the public service in the administration of criminal law, as an advocate-depute, in 1820, and after holding that office for about four years he was, in 1824, appointed Sheriff of Perthshire. In that capacity sheriff ship on being appointed, in 1831, Solicitorhe acted for ten years, and he vacated the General for Scotland, under Sir Robert Peels first Administration. Losing that office on the resignation of the Ministry, he conducted business with great success as a leading counsel until again, in 1841, he became Solicitor-General under Sir Robert Peel. In the following year he was promoted to be Lord Advocate, and he continued to exercise that high function until the fall of Sir Robert Peel's Administration in 1846, when he once more resumed his stuff gown, but on this occasion with the added dignity of Dean of the Faculty of Advocates-to which he had