SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK, BART., D.C.L., LL.D.,

SWEET AND MAXWELL, LIMITED, 3, CHANCERY LANE.

BOSTON:

LITTLE, BROWN & CO.

1909.

BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTEKS,

LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.

PREFACE TO VOL. CIX.

AMONG the multifarious judgments of the Master of the Rolls reported with excessive diligence by the late Mr. Beavan there occurs in this volume one really important one which went to the Court of Appeal and was affirmed: Re Langmead's Trusts, p. 161. This decision has been confirmed and more than confirmed by the modern successors of the Lords Justices Turner and Knight Bruce. It is now settled that a surviving partner has, for the purpose of winding up the partnership affairs, all the authority of a trustee with power to sell and give receipts; that his authority covers mortgage as well as sale, and real estate as well as chattels; and that a buyer of partnership assets from him, or lender on their security, dealing in good faith, is not bound to see to the application of his money: Re Bourne [1906] 2 Ch. 427.

In the first case of the volume, Hutton v. Rossiter, it seems doubtful whether the reasons given for the decision on the point of the executor's representations binding his estate are tenable since Derry v. Peek. Manning v. Purcell, p. 23, stands as very good authority on the extensive import of the words "all my monies" in a will. Lord Justice Turner observes, as to a customer's credit with his banker on a current account, "No doubt it is properly only a debt due from the bankers, but the ordinary usage of mankind treats it as money." The form of the old action of Debt went even farther, for it was an "action of property" and treated a certain sum due and payable exactly as if it were a specific parcel of coins belonging to the creditor which the debtor refused to deliver. A creditor, in Langdell's words. (Summary of the Law of Contracts, tit. Debt), supposes