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LEADING ARTICLES, &c.

TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.. LEADING ARTICLES.-Topics of the Week-Judicial Nescience- Medicine and the Law-Transfer of Bill of Sale-Civil Judicial Statistics, 1894

Vol. CII.-No. 2801.

520

328

380

105

103

COMMENTS ON CASES

OCCASIONAL NOTES...

NOTES OF RECENT DECISIONS NOT YET REPORTED

106

332

332

99

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114 ............ 117 NOTES AND QUERIES ........... 117 PROMOTIONS AND APPOINTMENTS ...... 118 LEGAL William OBITUARY. - Mr. Fitchett Burrell Mr. Samuel Taylor.....

118

LAW STUDENTS' JOURNAL.-Burnley
and District Law Students' Society:
- The Licensing Question - Uni-
versity College, London: Quain Law
Lectures-Students' Societies......... 118
THE COURTS AND COURT PAPERS.-
Order of Court-Rota of Registrars 120
THE GAZETTES............
... 120

99 BIRTHS, MARRIAGES AND DEATHS... 122

MR. JUSTICE HAWKINS has made a most valuable recommendation that after a criminal charge has been dismissed by a magistrate the prosecutor should not be allowed to proceed under the Vexatious Indictments Act without the fiat of a judge. The public needs protection against frivolous criminal proceedings as much as judges and others against vexatious and frivolous actions.

LAST night was debated at the Hardwicke Society a proposal that Benchers of the Inns of Court should be elected by the suffrages of the barristers of the several Inns.

THE Irish judges and the English Parliamentary Bar will not thank Mr. Justice GRANTHAM for the proposal that the Irish judges (who he says have little or nothing to do) should undertake the duties now performed by Parliamentary Committees in relation to Irish Private Bills. We should have thought there was enough for our judges to do in putting right our own defective system. However, here is the suggestion for what it is worth.

THE retainers of counsel are matters interesting to both branches of the Profession. Is counsel, once employed, retained for the trial, or what are his rights? A good deal of enlightened opinion is in favour of leaving clients and solicitors absolutely free; but the whole matter is now referred to a strong committee of the Bar Council.

A STRANGE and mournful change has come over the annual meeting of the Barristers' Benevolent Association. It was held as usual in the Middle Temple Hall last Tuesday. High Court judges were excluded-or not invited; for it was declared to be a business meeting-serious and practical. There were two County Court judges admitted--this class of judge means business, although they did not justify their presence, for they said nothing. The ATTORNEY-GENERAL was in the chair. A particularly gloomy report was read and adopted without a dissentient. Sir F. LOCKWOOD lamented; Sir E. CLARKE, Sir R. FINLAY, Sir W. PHILLIMORE all lamented. The committee was re-elected; votes of thanks were passed to the auditors, and the ATTORNEY-GENERAL;

and the meeting dissolved. This was a business meeting, designed to improve the financial position of the Association.

THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL said that criticism is invited. The obvious criticism is, that barristers in the management of their professional affairs seem to blunder deliberately. The management is generally left to the too successful. The Barristers' Benevolent Association is not an organisation. It does not adopt any of the familiar methods of friendly or charitable societies. There is no machinery for advertising; the bulk of the Profession never hear of its existence; the annual report is not circulated to the whole Profession; no canvassing for funds worth the name takes place. There is a large committee to disburse what it is nobody's business to collect. If the Inns of Court would allow their rent collectors to solicit alms for their unfortunate members as regularly and persistently as they apply for high rents, a step in advance would be made.

CHARITY is one of the few flowers of heavenly origin which blossom in the soul of the natural man; but it finds no congenial soil in the Inns of Court in their quasi-corporate capacity. Beyond pensioning a gate porter or a beadle, benevolence is almost unknown. There is waste in food; lavish expenditure in entertainments; in building new approaches to the recesses sacred to Benchers, with the badge newly sculptured outside; in printing musty records of past inanities. What would £500 apiece be to each of the four? The cost of a garden party. The accounts for the year would then read:

LORD ROSEBERY, at Edinburgh last week, listened to a lecture by Mr. HERBERT PAUL on " Parliamentary Oratory." The lecturer expressed the opinion that the English talked in the House of Commons in debates such as those upon the Army Estimates, "might almost be compared with the English talked in the courts of law-he meant, of course, English courts of law-which he took to reach the lowest literary, rhetorical, and grammatical standard to be found in the history of the world." We do not know what is Mr. PAUL'S experience of English law courts: it is extremely doubtful whether his severity would be supported by the majority of those who know as much as he does. But we by no means deprecate the severity. The Bar has almost forgotten what good speaking means. Slipshod, we have said before, is characteristic of many men in large practice; while the language of the judges is not only ungrammatical and unstudied, but loose, tautological, and often difficult to construe.

THE cause and reason of all this is not far to seek. Common sense and a knowledge of business are now the prevailing qualifications for success. Be abrupt,

have your you

facts

jerky, lax in your grammar; yet, if in order and can shovel them out in decent sequence, you may despise literary style, grammatical accuracy, and fluency of language. Mere oratory is, of course, out of place in the prosaic everyday business; the mischief is, however, that neither in education nor in subsequent efforts at self-culture is any attempt made by lawyers to improve their style of speaking. That may be one of the reasons why they so generally fail in the House of Commons, and when they It is a attempt to speak upon any but legal subjects. curious fact how little trouble barristers particularly take to cultivate any gifts they may have, and how bitterly they resent what they call their ill-luck if they do not get into large practice.

LAW students and young practitioners do not sufficiently appreciate the value of "moots" or legal discussions before competent presidents. Gray's-inn is entitled to the credit of keeping these exercises alive, and we cordially agree with Sir FREDERICK POLLOCK, who says, in a preface to a pamphlet on the subject, that " Conservatives and Reformers should alike welcome the revival of moots in Gray's-inn, for it has been both a reform and a restoration. The only thing that surprises me is that the example should not have been followed elsewhere in the Inns of Court. In American law schools the practice of argument in moot courts is treated, not as a luxury or diversion, but as an obviously necessary part of legal education. But in our law schools, such as they are, it seems impossible at present to shake off the superstition that paper examinations are all-sufficient. When we have all become wiser it will be remembered with gratitude that Gray's-inn showed the way to better things." We have "Readers" at every Inn, but they never read-only feed.

THE anticipation humorously indulged in that the junior members of the Bar will not know the present law officers of the Crown even by appearance, owing to their enforced abstention from the general practice of their profession under recent regulations, will recall to recollection that, at a time comparatively recent, an Irish judge on his elevation to the Bench was unknown to the junior members of the Bar. Mr. JOHN GEORGE, Q.C., was Solicitor-General for Ireland in the Tory Administration in 1859. On the fall of the Government Mr. GEORGE devoted himself exclusively to his Parliamentary duties, and rarely, if ever, appeared in the Irish courts. When, in 1866, he was appointed a Justice of the Queen's Bench, the younger members of the Bar came into court to see the new judge, with whose personal appearance they were unacquainted.

THE refusal of the Court of Appeal to accede to an application for committal for contempt of court against the proprietor and editor of the Liverpool Post, which was characterised by the judges as ridiculous and "simply an invitation to make fools of themselves," will remind the public that other tribunals have not exercised the same power of self-restraint in resorting to the power of commitment for contempt, which is unlimited and subject to no appeal, and even outside the purview of the prerogative of pardon. So far back as the 24th Oct. 1882 legislation was promised aimed at the limitation of this power, when Mr. GLADSTONE, as Prime Minister, spoke these significant words: "The question of the law of contempt is a question of great general interest, and in regard to which I need not, perhaps, too much disparage what I have just said if I venture to intimate to the House that it is a subject which has been brought much of late into the popular mind both on this and the other side of the Channel, and that the Government have it in contemplation, not during the present short sittings, but at the regular commencement of next session-they have it in contemplation, they hope at a very

early period, to submit a measure dealing with the altering of the present law.”

THE "more convenient season " for this long-promised reform in our jurisprudence has not yet arrived, and during the fourteen years that have elapsed since this Government promise it cannot be urged that the evils of the present system have abated. No later than last April the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, in a judgment in the Queen's Bench Division, in which Mr. Justice WRIGHT Concurred, in a case of Payne v. Cooper, said that, "of late applications for committal for contempt of court had been much too numerous, and that in some instances the decisions had gone

too far."

Mr. SWIFT MACNEILL, on the 20th April, in the House of Commons, called the attention of the ATTORNEYGENERAL to those observations. Sir RICHARD WEBSTER did not, however, "consider that there was sufficient necessity for legislation on this subject." The public at large will, we think, despite this official answer, shrink from permitting an unlimited power of depriving the subject of liberty to continue in the hands of a single judge, more especially when the opinion of the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND is on record that such power has at times been arbitrarily and capriciously exercised.

SIR COURTENAY BOYLE has done well in directing public attention to the necessity of company legislation in the forthcoming session. The two recent House of Lords decisions, whereby the "one-man company" has been shown to be legal, and the examinations of directors under the Directors' Liability Act of 1890 has been unduly restricted, will no doubt tend to increase the public support which a reasonable amending Bill (such as that introduced last session in the House of Lords by Lord DUDLEY) will receive. That Bill was, rightly or wrongly, delayed by the appointment of a Select Committee of the House of Lords. If any further investigation is required, we hope that it will speedily be brought to a conclusion, and that not only an amending Bill, but also a consolidating one-repealing and re-enacting the amending measure, after the fashion so well set by the Luna y legislation of 1890-may be passed before August next. The principal Companies Act is now more than thirty years old, and it is high time that the Act of 1867, the three Acts of 1890, and the numerous decisions should be thrown into one statute.

THE Archbishop designate has now been "elected" by the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, and confirmation, consecration, enthronement, and homage for the temporalities will follow in due course; but the Archbishopric will have remained vacant for a long time-up to the 8th of next month before the filling up of the vacancy is complete, and the same steps and delays will have to be taken and occur in filling up the bishoprics which will become vacant by reason of the promotion of the BISHOP OF LONDON. The Crown has the custody of the temporalities during an episcopal vacancy, but it appears that, ex gratia, the Sovereign may grant them by letters patent to the bishop after confirmation and before consecration, and that a grant so made is good: (see Phillimore's Ecclesiastical Law, vol. 1, p. 65, citing Watson, c. 40). The stamp duties on the letters patent granting these dignities are considerable. They appear to amount to £30 on the congé d'elire, £30 on the Royal assent to the election, "or of the nominations and presentations by HER MAJESTY in default of such election of any person to be an archbishop or bishop," and £30 on the restitution of the temporalities: (see Stamp Act 1871, and Schedule I., tit. "Grant.") Perhaps, in addition to the Church reforms that have been announced as forthcoming by the Archbishop designate, it might with advantage be provided that vacancies should be filled up with greater celerity.

Second Sheet.

JUDICIAL NESCIENCF.

"WHERE IS THE NATIONAL LIBERAL CLUB?"-Hawkins, J. CAN anyone inform me where the National Liberal Club is? For since I've lost my faithful Jack, (a) I've wanted many bearings.

Poor Jack was everything in life except a politician,

And that I think he would have been if he'd not been too honest.

Is the place that ugly edifice of grey stone and of mortar,
Where in the stress of party storms dwells bifurcated Harcourt?
Tall, towering o'er the dirty waves of the most noble Isis;
And where sometimes ejaculates the philosophic Morley,
And Jones of Atherley, enwrapt in new silk gown, reposes?
Perhaps Sir Frank can tell us whether there it was he uttered
Those nice paternal lectures to dear Venezuela Clarke;
And in their dingy chambers is't that Bobby Reid discourses
On things that canny Asquith doesn't venture to discuss?
But this is speculation, for I tell you since Jack left me
I've almost quite forgotten whereabouts Newmarket Heath is;
And thought two clubs alone exist for jockeys and for
judges, (b)

While the paddock down at Epsom has become remote and misty,

And the park-like sweep of Sandown mythological to me.
So we'll leave the National Liberal Club at present, if it please

you,

And confine ourselves to that most savoury dear old place called Scott-land,

Where the Russell of the foliage makes pleasant the Old Bailey, And the Court exacts securities for subject-like behaviour, Whilst the White Book gives a Q. B. Judge the power to Marshall all.

Annotation by Mr. Ch-s M-ws. (a) The learned judge's fox terrier, which died recently under most advantageous circumstances. (b) Believed to refer to the Jockey Club and the Athenæum.

MEDICINE AND THE LAW.

THE recently decided case of Beatty v. Collingworth, where a nurse sued a surgeon for damages for performing an operation which she alleged she had forbidden him to perform, and which was successfully defended by a denial of any agreement not to perform, and by a statement that the operation was necessary for the prolongation of life, draws the attention of the public to the relation that exists, and has long existed, between the medical profession and the law.

In early times there was a marked distinction between physicians and surgeons, and it is convenient to look at each class separately. As long ago as 1422 (9 Hen. 5, Petyt's MSS. v. 33) an Act was drawn up, requiring anyone who "shall use the mysterie of Fysyk" to be a Bachelor in the science of medicine in some university. It seems probable that this Act never attained the force of law. Nothing further was done by the Legislature for another century, and in the meanwhile the practice of medicine passed to a great extent out of the comparatively skilled hands of monks and parish priests into the control of the utterly ignorant. So great had the abuse become, that in 1511 an Aet (3 Hen. 8, c. 11) was passed concerning "Phesicions and Surgeons," which recited the need for accurate knowledge, and the fact that multitudes of ignorant persons practised the arts, including "common artificers, smiths, weavers, and women." The Act provides that no one should be allowed to practise until he had been examined, approved, and admitted by the Bishop of London, or the "Dean of Poules," acting under the advice of recognised doctors of physic or surgery, as the case might be. The rights of Oxford and Cambridge to allow their properly qualified graduates to practise were, however, reserved. This Act is still in force, but it never had much practical value, for in 1518 the College of Physicians was incorporated, through the labours of the great Doctor Thomas Linacre, assisted by the strenuous efforts of Cardinal Wolsey. This charter gave powers to the college for the making of bye-laws and regulations for its own government, and forbad any person to practise within seven miles of London without the licence of the college. See also on this point 14 & 15 Hen. 8, c. 5, which is still in force. Beyond the seven-mile limit no one could practise who had not been examined and approved by the President of the Council and three other members, and had become graduates of Oxford or Cambridge. The charter was further enlarged in the same reign, and subsequently in the reigns of Mary I., James I., and Charles II. In 1854 London University was given the same rights as to medical practitioners as had been possessed by Oxford and Cambridge for centuries. In 1858 the great Medical Act of that year (21 & 22 Vict. c. 90) became law, by which was established the General Council of Medical Education and Registration of the United Kingdom, and which carefully regulated and supervised the qualifications of persons practising medicine and surgery. In 1886 was passed a most important statute (49 & 50 Vict. c. 48), based on the report of the Royal Commission of 1883, which instituted paid inspectors of examinations to ensure a standard of proficiency, and which provided for the establishment of

direct representatives of the medical profession and of representatives from the various bodies in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and from the Universities, on the General Council.

We turn to the subject of surgery in early times. Modern legislation of course deals with both medicine and surgery, and the differences between the two branches above referred to chiefly noticeable in early times.

In the middle ages, long before the revival of learning, all matters requiring trained skill were in the hands of the monks and the clergy of the parishes. Surgery was not an exception, and was exclusively practised by clerics until, by the Council of Tours (1163), the clergy were forbidden to undertake " bloody operations." Such operations were, however, necessary and had to be done by someone, and the handiest person to do them was that necessary frequenter of the monasteries, the barber. Consequently the Chirugeon-barber became a person of importance, and his calling became not only respectable but lucrative, and we find that in 1461" the Mystery and Faculty of Barbers practising Surgery" was incorporated as the "Company of Barbers in London." It appears also that there was a class of persons in England, considerable in numbers, who, though not barbers, had been in the habit of practising surgery (perhaps they included the class of bone-setters), and in 1540 the barbers and the surgeons were united into one body entitled "The Masters of the Mystery and Commonalty of the Barbers and Surgeons of London." In Charles I.'s reign the powers of this company were increased and strengthened by the issue of Royal letters patent. In 1745 the United Company was re-constituted under the name of "The Masters, Governors, and Commonalty of the Art and Science of Surgeons of London," with all the old exclusive powers of practising in London, and within a radius of seven miles. In 1800 it was incorporated by charter under the name of" The Royal College of Surgeons in London" with new privileges, and in 1843 it became "The Royal College of Surgeons of England." In 1853 it obtained power to examine in Midwifery, and in 1859 (as a supplement to the Medical Act of 1858 already mentioned) it obtained power to examine and grant practising diplomas in dentistry. So much for the two branches of the medical profession, which is now governed by powers created by statute. We may note that it was not until 1876 (39 & 40 Vict. c. 41, s. 1) that women became eligible for registration under the Medical Act.

It is interesting to note that the College of Surgeons of Edinburgh dates from about 1505, and that of Ireland from 1784. The Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow dates from 1599; the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh was incorporated in 1681; the King and Queen's College of Physicians in Ireland was founded in 1692 on the lines of an earlier body that dated from 1654.

The General Council of Medical Education and Registration have wide disciplinary powers, and can erase a name from the register if the person has been " guilty of infamous conduct in any professional respect." It has been decided in the courts that the General Council are the sole judges whether a practitioner has been guilty of infamous conduct, but a bonâ fide inquiry must be made into the case by the Council: (Allbutt v. Medical Council, 61 L. T. Rep. 585; 23 Q. B. Div. 400).

The question of fees is important. Before the Medical Act of 1858 a surgeon could recover his fees in a court of law, and a physician could do so also if he had given attendance in accordance with an express contract; the physician 'otherwise could not recover his fees. Since the Act (in accordance with a decision made in the early sixties) a physician, registered under the Medical Act and not prohibited by any bye-law of his college, has always been able to recover by action, it being decided by Mr. Justice Bramwell that since 1858 a physician attends for a fee and not for an honorarium: (Gibbon v. Budd, 2 H. & C. 92).

Physicians or surgeons bring themselves within the law if they are guilty of what is technically known as " Malpraxis." This falls under four heads: (1) Wilful malpraxis, which includes the wilful injury or destruction of the patient; (2) Avaricious malpraxis-improper treatment for the sake of gain; (3) Negligent malpraxis-neglect of proper and suitable attention; (4) Ignorant malpraxis-the holding of yourself out as a skilled person when you are nothing of the sort. All these offences involve criminal or civil liability, as do also assaults committed on patients in the course of treatment. A surgeon would probably be liable, possibly for assault in a criminal court, or else for damages in a civil court, if, after having been forbidden to perform an operation, and having consented not to perform it, he actually did perform it and damage followed. The plea that the operation was necessary to save life would, of course, have great weight, if supported, with a jury; but, if such necessity did not exist, and the patient died, it seems almost certain that the surgeon would be convicted of manslaughter. If such is not the law it certainly ought to be so, because the fear of excessive operating may have the result of preventing patients from submitting to necessary operations.

TRANSFER OF BILL OF SALE.

WHERE a bill of sale has been given by one person to another the grantee of such bill of sale has the power to transfer or assign the same to some third party.

The form of transfer, after reciting the original bill of sale, the amount then due to the grantee, and that all interest has been paid up to the date therein specified, the amount the proposed transferee has agreed to pay to the transferor upon having the assignment and the securities for the same, assigns to the transferee, his executors, administrators, and assigns, all the principal sum remaining due and owing to the transferor on the security of the original bill of sale, with all interest then due or to become thereafter due, and all the several chattels and things comprised

in and assigned by the original bill of sale; then comes all the estate clause, after which follows the habendum, and then the proviso for redemption, also a covenant by the transferor that the money is still owing, and that he has done no act to incumber, and for quiet enjoyment: (see form, Reed's Bills of Sale, Appendix, Part III., p. 273, 9th edit).

The transfer or assignment of the bill of sale need not be registered (41 & 42 Vict. c. 31, s. 10), and by sect. 11 of the same Act it is enacted that a renewal of registration shall not become necessary by reason only of a transfer or assignment. Thus in Re Parker and Parker; Ex parte Turquand and Whinney (53 L. T. Rep. 579), the Westgate Hotel case, the tenant executed a bill of sale upon the furniture and chattels contained in the hotel, the bill of sale being duly registered, which was afterwards transferred by the grantees to the bankrupts as a security for an advance: the latter deposited the same with their bankers under a memorandum of equitable charge as a security for an advance. Subsequently the bankrupts, having purchased the equity of redemption, entered into possession by their nominees and carried on the business of the hotel, and upon the bankruptcy the trustees applied to the court for an order declaring that the chattels comprised in the bill of sale were in the order and disposition of the bankrupt, and that the memorandum of equitable charge should have been registered as a bill of sale under the Act of 1878. It was held that the custom of hiring furniture was so notorious amongst hotel-keepers as to exclude reputation of ownership, and that the memorandum was a "transfer or assignment of a registered bill of sale within sect. 10 of the Bills of Sale Act 1878, and therefore did not require to be registered. With respect to this custom it will be interesting to take note of the observations of Brett, M.R., who, in delivering his judgment, says: "The first question is, whether things which are found in a hotel in the possession of the hotel-keeper at the time of his bankruptcy, but which are not really his property, are in his order and disposition within the meaning of the law of bankruptcy. The courts have held that the custom or habit is so notorious as to furniture in hotels that no person has a right to infer that the furniture belongs to the bankrupt, and therefore the doctrine of reputed ownership does not apply. The courts do not require evidence of this custom, because it has so often been proved. It is said on behalf of the appellants that the courts have stated that this custom exists as to furniture, but have not stated what is meant by furniture. It is obvious that everything which goes to furnish a hotel so as to enable people to carry it on as a hotel must be included in the term furniture." In Ex parte Shaw (36 L. T. Rep. 805), where A. in 1852 executed a bill of sale in favour of B. of his trade fixtures to secure advances, and in 1874 B.'s executors, without the concurrence of A., made a transfer to C., who took possession in Nov. 1876, and in the following December A. was adjudicated bankrupt, it was decided by the County Court judge that the transfer was void as against A.'s trustee in bankruptcy on the ground of non-registration. On appeal, this decision was reversed, and it was held that the transfer did not require registration either under the Bills of Sale Act 1854 or under the repealed Act of 1866. In Horn v. Hughes (44 L. T. Rep. 678) A., by a duly registered bill of sale, assigned by way of mortgage to B. as security for an advance of £508 certain goods and chattels. B. subsequently, by A.'s request, transferred the security to C., who in consequence thereof advanced the same amount as B. had advanced. During the holding of the security by C. the amount of A.'s liability was reduced by him to £348, and this sum was due on the 20th Feb. 1880. C. on the same day assigned by deed, in conjunction with A., to the plaintiff the said security in consideration of the plaintiff paying to C. the said sum of £348, and a further sum to A. as expenses, which substantially made the amount to £508 as originally advanced. The defendant seized the goods assigned under a writ of fi. fa., and contended that the transfer from C. to the plaintiff should have been duly registered as a bill of sale, which it was alleged had not been done. Upon interpleader proceedings it was held that, as the original amount for which the bill of sale had been given as security was not exceeded by the sums secured on the transfer by C. to the plaintiff, such transfer was not a new bill of sale, but a transfer exempted from the operation of sect. 10 of 41 & 42 Vict. c. 31 (Bills of Sale Act 1878) and did not require registration, and the judgment of the Queen's Bench Division was affirmed, Lord Justice Lush stating: "The bill of sale in question passed no further property in the goods than had already passed by the first bill of sale, which conveyed the whole property of the mortgagor. I think it is no more than an assignment of the former bill of sale. It follows, therefore, that it comes within the Bills of Sale Act 1878 (41 & 42 Vict. c. 31), sect. 10, and does not require registration, and therefore the plaintiff is entitled to the goods. A mortgagor has a right to have a reconveyance of the mortgaged property upon payment of the amount due under the mortgage, and the mortgagee is bound to make such reconveyance upon payment being made, and the assignee cannot stand in any better position. Thus, in Walker v. Jones (14 L. T. Rep. 686), when J., who, in order to secure payment of certain promissory notes made in favour of R., his partner, executed a mortgage of his (J.'s) share of the partnership property, and R. discounted four of these notes with W., and assigned the mortgage to W. as security, who afterwards in consequence of a certain sum of money re-assigned the mortgages, but kept the notes and sued J. on the notes, it was decided that J. was entitled to an injunction restraining W. from suing on the notes, for W. was in the position of a mortgagee to J., and whilst he retained to himself the debt secured by the mortgage, had no right to transfer the property comprised in the mortgage. Lord Justice Turner (pp. 687-688) says: "The assignee of a mortgagee cannot, in our opinion, stand in any different character or hold any different position than the mortgagee himself, although, as in this case, the mortgagor may not have been a party to the assignment. . . . It is also clear that every mortgagor has the right to have a reconveyance of the mortgaged property upon payment of the money due upon the mortgage, and that every mortgagee is charged

with the duty of making such reconveyance upon such payment being made. This, indeed, is no more than the necessary result of the relative positions of the parties, the mortgage being only a security for the debt." In Ex parte Odell; Re Walden (39 L. T. Rep. 333) C. advanced £150 to B., a trader, for the purpose of paying out an execution. B. gave C. a receipt to this effect," Received of C. £150 for the absolute sale to him of the above-mentioned articles of furniture." This receipt was written at the foot of an inventory of his furniture. The same day B. and C. executed a memorandum of agreement, whereby C. agreed to let on hire to B. the same furniture for two months for £170, and also agreed that, in default of payment or in case of bankruptcy of B., C. should be entitled to seize the furniture and sell the same, and in case it realised more than £170 C. should pay the excess to B., but if less, B. should make good the deficiency to him; and further, it was agreed that, when the £170 had been paid by B. to C., the furniture should become B.'s. These documents were not registered under the Bills of Sale Act. Default was made in payment of the £170; W. paid the amount to C., who indorsed on the above-mentioned memorandum of agreement a receipt for the amount " for the absolute sale to W. of the whole of the goods herein specified," and W. executed an agreement re-letting the furniture to B. upon similar terms as those existing previously between C. and B. The agreement was not registered. B. committed an act. of bankruptcy, for which he was adjudicated a bankrupt; the furniture remained in his apparent possession after the commission of this act of bankruptcy, and the trustee claimed the proceeds of the furniture, which had been sold by W. It was held that the further documents, which were executed when C. advanced the money were one transaction, and together constituted a conditional bill of sale, which was, as against the trustee, void for want of registration, and that the transaction by W. with C. was a mere transfer to him of C.'s rights as mortgagee, and gave him no better title than C. had, and that the trustee was entitled to the proceeds of sale.

In Chapman v. Knight; Watson, claimant (42 L. T. Rep. 538; 49 L. J 425, C. P.), the goods of the defendant had been seized in execution, and sold by the sheriff to a Mr. Oliver, who gave him an inventory and receipt thereto attached, this document was given subsequently to the passing of the Bills of Sale Act 1878, and not registered. Oliver never took possession of the goods, but the defendant had possession. A few days after Oliver conveyed the goods in trust to defendant's wife by deed which was not registered, and a power was given to the trustee to sell upon her direction. The defendant's wife subsequently sold the goods to Watson, and an inventory and receipt signed by her and the defendant were given to him. The document was duly registered, but the trustee was not a party thereto; the goods still remained in possession of the defendant. It was decided that the assignment to Watson was invalid and void as against an execution creditor of the defendant, because not in compliance with the Bills of Sale Act, and contrary to the direction of the settlement. Where A. had mortgaged furniture to B., and a power of sale was given to him in default of payment, and A. gave a second bill of sale of the same furniture to C., and afterwards B. entered into possession on A.'s default in payment, leaving his servant in possession, and D. agreed with A. to purchase goods, he not having notice of the second bill of sale, which goods were delivered to D. by B.'s servant, who thereupon paid the balance due to B., the latter thereupon delivering to him (D.) his bill of sale, also giving to him a receipt which purported to sell and assign the goods to D., it was held, under the Bills of Sale Act 1854, that D., as against C., had no title to the goods: (Cooper v. Braham, 15 L. T. Pep. 610). And in Karet v. Kosher Meat Supply Association (36 L. T. Rep. 694), where a bill of sale was duly executed and registered, and afterwards transferred by the assignee, and the transfer was not registered, nor the registration renewed, it was held, under the repealed Bills of Sale Act 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. 96), sect. 4, that the registration, after five years without renewal, ceased to have any effect, and the bill of sale was null and void.

By sect. 4 of the Bills of Sale Act of 1878 (41 & 42 Vict. c. 31), transfers or assignments of any ship or vessel, or any share thereof, are excepted from the expression "bill of sale." And by the Merchant Shipping Act 1894 (57 & 58 Vict. c. 60), sect. 24, it is enacted that a registered ship or a share therein (when disposed of to a person qualified to own a British ship) shall be transferred by bill of sale, which shall contain such description of the ship as is contained in the surveyor's certificate, or some other description, sufficient to identify the ship to the satisfaction of the registrar, and shall be in the form marked "A" in the first part of the first schedule to the Act, or as near thereto as circumstances permit. The bill of sale is to be executed by the transferor in the presence of, and be attested by, a witness or witnesses. A mortgage of a ship or any share therein must also be in the form prescribed by the Act.

By the Stamp Act 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 97), the duty on a transfer or assignment of a bill of sale, or of any money secured thereby, is 6d. for every £100 or part of £100 of the amount advanced. Assuming, however, that any further sum is advanced beyond the amount originally advanced, then the document will have to be stamped as if it were a fresh security for the amount beyond the original advance, for where on a transfer or assignment of a bill of sale any money is added to the sum already secured, it is considered that there is a transfer of the original amount of the advance and a further transfer or new security for the additional sum advanced: (Wales v. Commissioners of Inland Revenue, 41 L. T. Rep. 165).

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"I have also based my figures on the plaints under £20. submit are the most useful figures for comparison, as showing how the small debt courts are used for their original purpose. The larger plaints form only 0119, or about one eighty-fourth of those under £20. The number of plaints issued in the County Court districts of Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cheshire, was one for each 248 of the population, and for the County Court districts south of the above counties one plaint for each 26 6 of the population.

"There is, therefore, rather less litigiousness in the southern counties than in the northern counties, but the distribution of litigation in the northern counties is very unequal. In the four extreme northern counties of Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmorland, the plaints average only one for each 33 5 of the population, whilst in the more thickly populated counties of Lancashire, Cheshire, and Yorkshire (which embrace numerous large county boroughs, and have a population of about four times that of the extreme northern counties named above), the average of plaints amounts to one for every 23 of the population. Throughout the five circuits (viz. Nos. 24, 28, 29, and 31), which embrace all the Welsh County Court districts and also those of Chester (Cheshire) and Ross (Herefordshire), the average of plaints is very nearly that of the normal rate throughout the Kingdom. Here, again, there are variances of distribution. In Monmouthshire, which was the worst county as regards crime in 1894, the plaints were one for every 23 persons, or only somewhat higher than the average throughout the Kingdom, whilst in Glamorganshire, which in 1894 stood second in the point of crime, the average is one plaint for every 15 persons.

"The lowest average would appear to be in Cornwall, where the plaints. are one for every 59 persons; but with regard to this last figure the existence of the Stannaries Court has, of course, to be taken into consideration."

In

In the County Courts trial by jury shows no tendency to increase. one year the number of jury cases was nearly 1 per cent. of those determined. As a rule, however, they fall far short of this proportion. They were in 1858-62 0.23 per cent., and in 1893-94 out of an annual average of 712,398 cases determined, only 1469 or 02 per cent. came before a jury.

With reference to the High Court returns, it has been pointed out that only a small percentage of the total number of cases end in a verdict or judgment for defendant. This holds good of the County Court actions. Throughout the years to which the comparative table relates the judgments for defendants have never exceeded 36 per cent. of the whole, and they appear to be diminishing. This is due to the fact that a very large part of the business of the County Courts is merely debt collecting-enforcing claims to which there is and can be no suggested defence.

Jurisdiction was given to the County Courts in equity matters by the County Court Act 1865. The bulk of the proceedings are for the administration of small estates, for foreclosure or redemption, appointment of trustees, petitions, and injunctions. The applications for administration seem to be decreasing. Measured by the number of applications or the amount in dispute, the total amount of equity business is not much greater than it was in the years immediately succeeding 1866. Much the same may be said of the Admiralty business in the County Courts. In the City of London Court it increases. But the number of Admiralty actions entered in all County Courts is not much more than in 1869-72.

Costs in 1893-91 are about four times as much as they were in 1858-32, though the amount recovered is not quite twice as much as it then was. The amount of fees has also risen, but not so much (97 per cent.) as the costs. The fees are about six times the amount of the costs in 1858-62;. in 1893-94 they were not quite three times as much. In round figures, for every £1 recovered in the earlier period the costs were about 10d., the fees about 5s.; in 1893-94 the costs were about 1s. 10d., the fees about 5s. 2d. Including costs and fees, for every £1 recovered about 6s. were spent in 1858-62, and in 1893-94 about 7s.

There is one obvious difference between the mode of enforcing judg. ment or orders in the High Court and that in the County Courts. In the former they are, as a rule, enforced by writ of execution against the goods of the debtor or by the appointment of a receiver; in the latter a common method is to take proceedings for the committal of the debtor to prison Executions against goods resulting in sales by the bailiffs of the courts are comparatively few, while the applications for committal are very many. In 1893-94 there were no fewer than 249,520 judgment summonses per annum; that is, more than one in every three of the judgments for plaintiff resulted in a judgment summons. Comparing the returns for 1858-62 with those for 1893-91, there was an increase of 106 per cent. in the summonses issued, 165 per cent. in the summonses heard, and no less than 201 per cent. in warrants issued-rates of increase far in excess of the increase in judgments for the plaintiffs. In other words, creditors more and more resort to issuing judgment summonses and to the extreme course of obtaining warrants for committal. On the other hand, there is a reduction (18.64 per cent.) in the number of persons imprisoned.' Imprisonment is not found necessary because debts are paid when warrants