stances; and another view expressed was, that all judgments were open to be impugned. This is good common sense. Although Lord ESHER asks, who cares for the Press? it is desirable that there should be a limit to criticism upon occupants of judicial offices.

LORD COLERIDGE has given the most valuable testimonial to the excellence of the Barristers' Benevolent Association by attending Tuesday's meeting, and doubling his subscription. The majority of barristers of to-day are not in a position to follow this example so far as regards the pecuniary part, and we cannot agree with one of the speakers, that the condition of the Association is any reproach to the Bar. When the markets in which a commercial population sell their wares are shut, prosperity disappears. This is the case with barristers. Destitution follows in the tracks of judicial frost. Starving men cannot be generous. Those who by reason of professional famine cannot earn enough for the needs of themselves and their families, cannot be expected to provide for others. It is different with those who pursue the enviable career of the Hon. GEORGE DENMANa prosperous career at the Bar, twenty years at £5000 a year, and a handsome pension of £3500-who expressed his warm sympathy with less fortunate competitors in the forensic handicap.

SIR ANDREW FAIRBAIRN writes from Leeds to the Times to make known the condition of things at that important city as regards the Winter Assizes:

It appears to me (he says) that the attention of the public ought to be drawn to the very great inconvenience to which suitors and others are put, by the present arrangement, whereby five of Her Majesty's justices are taken away from their ordinary duties in order to try election petitions or else to preside over a commission in the sister island. This is the day (Dec. 6) fixed for opening the commission at Leeds, but such is the pressure of work elsewhere that the judge appointed to preside in the criminal court at Leeds is not expected to appear before to-morrow evening or Thursday morning. There is a heavy cause list and over sixty prisoners awaiting their trial, and yet to-morrow, on the first day of the assizes, there will be only one judge to open the commission, charge the grand jury, and try the civil causes. I presume the criminal business will be intrusted to one or more of the Queen's Counsel. Surely the legal business of a great county like Yorkshire is of equal importance to that of the Election and Evicted Tenants Commissions, and that we should have a judge to preside in each of the courts on the first day of the

assizes.

A Commissioner was deliberately withheld from Leeds. It is said that there are strong reasons for not sending commissioners. Quite possible; but we should like to know what they are. If, however, Leeds is justified in calling out, with its sixty or seventy causes, what ought to be permitted to London with its 900?

The

APPEALS from Divisional Courts in Admiralty, sitting on appeal from County Courts, can be carried to the Court of Appeal without leave. Lord Justice KAY, giving judgment in the case of The Dart, said that the sections of the several Acts were most complicated, and the legislation was very confused. This is how the thing stands: Sect. 45 of the Judicature Act 1873, which came into operation on the 1st Nov. 1875, provided that the determination of appeals from County Courts by the Divisional Courts should be final unless special leave to appeal be given by the Divisional Court. County Courts Admiralty Jurisdiction Act 1875, which came into operation the day after, said that no leave to appeal was necessary where the Admiralty Court altered the judgment of the County Court. That section was not consistent with sect. 45 of the Judicature Act 1873, and so far as regards these appeals, where the Admiralty Court altered the judgment of the County Court, sect. 45 did not apply and was not in force. Then sect. 188 of the County Courts Act 1888 repealed sect. 10 of the Act of 1875, but that repeal was not to revive any enactment not in force at the commencement of the Act. Sect. 45 of the Judicature Act 1873, which prevented an appeal without leave, was not in force at the com

mencement of the Act where the Divisional Court altered the judgment of the County Court sitting in Admiralty. That section, therefore, was not revived in such a case, and the appeal lay without leave. This is a beautiful specimen of modern legislation.

THE probate suit of Roe v. Nia, concluded last week after a seven days' trial, disclosed some curious points. The will set up was that of a person, who, when she executed it, was found a lunatic by inquisition. She was declared by all the LORD CHANCELLOR'S lunacy visitors who had seen her, to be the subject of insane delusions, affecting her testamentary capacity. The jury found that these gentlemen were all mistaken, and upheld the will-thereby finding in effect that she was improperly detained in a lunatic asylum. It was manifest from Mr. Justice BARNES's summing-up that he did not agree with the verdict, which may be some consolation for the lunacy visitors.

A POINT of practice of some moment cropped up in the course of the case. It appeared that reports had been made concerning the testatrix to the Commissioners in Lunacy. These reports had not been destroyed, as the statute directs that they should be, upon the death of the lunatic. It was sought to obtain them for the purpose of putting them in evidence. But all the judges of the Court of Appeal, on being consulted, held that they must be taken to be nonexistent, and an order for their production was refused. The lunacy visitors, however, had received express permission from the LORD CHANCELLOR to give evidence, and they were able to give secondary evidence of documents which in theory, though not in fact, were destroyed. Which is a somewhat laughable position.

WE hear of a curious fact which throws light upon the prospects of the Profession. At the present assizes there have been seventy civil actions set down for trial at Liverpool, and in no single case have the pleadings been drawn by a London junior. This is significant of the extent to which the system of localising has been carried. But it also serves to accentuate the demand for permanent sittings of the High Court in such large centres of business as Liverpool.

In

THE Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act 1891, which abolishes the distinction between pure and impure personalty, and permits land to be devised to charities on certain conditions as to sale, is not wholly retrospective. The 9th section enacts that, "this Act shall only apply to the will of a testator dying after the passing of this Act." Re Bridger; Brompton Hospital for Consumption v. Lewis (ante, p. 35) it was decided that by implication it applies to a will made before, if the testator died after, the passing of the Act (the 5th Aug. 1891). A further question has been raised in Re Corcoran; Corcoran v. Riddle (noted ante, p. 129; (1892) W. N. 182). There a testator gave his personal estate to trustees upon trust to convert and invest on real or personal securities, and after the death of the tenant for life upon trust to pay, assign, and transfer his personal estate, and the stocks, funds, and securities upon which the same might be then invested, or so much thereof as might by law be so applied, to a charity. He died in 1879, and before the death of the tenant for life the trustees invested what was pure personalty at the testator's death on a mortgage of real estate, and it was still so invested when the tenant for life died. If the charity had been an immediate legatee, it is obvious that at the period of the testator's death it could have taken, and it was, perhaps naturally, felt by the representatives of the charity that the action of the trustees should not be allowed to alter the destination of the fund. The trustees, were, however, acting in accordance with the discretionary

power given them by the testator, and, as the new Act applies only to the will of a testator dying after the 5th Aug. 1891, Mr. Justice NORTH held that the charity could not take.

THE new Government would earn, or at least deserve, the gratitude of those who have to advise on what is and what is not a bill of sale, if they were to pass a good Bills of Sale Act. In Climpson v. Coles (61 L. T. Rep, N. S. 116; 23 Q. B. Div. 465) there was a provision in a mortgage that in certain events the mortgagee might sell the mortgaged hereditaments or premises, "and all bricks, timber, slates, and other materials standing and being thereon." Justices DINMAN and STEPHEN held that this was a bill of sale within the meaning of the Act of 1882, as the bricks, &c., might be sold separately from the land, without any entry on the premises, 'except so far as is necessary for raising the amount required and disposing of the goods." In Church v. Sage; Froy, Claimant, Mr. Justice WRIGHT has taken the matter further (ante, p. 130) by holding that the assignment of a builder's interest in certain agreements, together with all the plant and materials on the premises, or to be brought on the premises during building, as security for money lent and further advances, was in respect of the plant and materials a bill of sale, and, not having been registered as such, was void. Surely the mischief aimed at by these Acts is not caused by mortgaging what is or will be on the land as well as the land itself. Everyone dealing with a builder knows that in all probability his agreement and the land and the materials on it are mortgaged, and the remedy lies in the contractors' own hands, who can refuse to furnish materials on a large scale without being paid ready money for them.

AN interesting and unusual incident arose at the Herefordshire Assizes, before Mr. Justice DAY. Certain treasure trove was found in the county, and an inquiry held before the coroner, as to (1) whether it was treasure trove or not? (2) as to whom the title of such belongs, whether to the Crown or to the lord of the manor? The right of the coroner to inquire into this latter question was disputed by the Crown. The coroner's jury found, as to the first question, that it was treasure trove; as to the second, they did not agree. The coroner therefore bound over the same jury

to appear at these assizes to be charged by the judge of assize upon the coroner's depositions to return a verdict, in accordance with sect. 5 of the Coroners Act of 1887, which provides as follows: "In case twelve at least of the jury do not agree on a verdict the coroner may adjourn the inquest to the next sessions of Oyer and Terminer or Gaol Delivery, held for the county or place in which the inquest is held, and if, after the jury have heard the charge of the judge or commissioner holding such sessions, twelve of them fail to agree on a verdict, the jury may be discharged by such judge or commissioner without giving a verdict." When the coroner's jury were called at the assizes by the coroner only eleven attended; the judge therefore discharged them, instead of charging them. It would, if tried, have been the first case under this Act of this kind, and was, so far as it went, the first case of treasure trove brought to the sessions of gaol delivery. The Crown contest the right of the coroner to inquire as to who has the right to the treasure trove, claiming that the Crown has the entire and absolute right to all treasure trove, and the whole matter will be shortly brought before the High Court upon an information of the ATTORNEY-GENERAL. The Crown contend that the 36th section of the Coroners Act of 1887, which follows the 4 Edw. 1, is the only section that applies to the jurisdiction of the coroner in cases of treasure trove, the words being to hear and determine "who were the finders and who suspected thereof." The lord of the manor contends, and will contend, that a grant of treasure trove was made by deed to his predecessors in title in the time of JAMES I. Second Sheet.

In our issue of the 3rd Dec. we reported a decision of his Honour Judge TURNER, at the York County Court with respect to a claim by a widow to dower, and in our opinion the point, which is a most important one, was incorrectly decided by the learned judge. A Mr. JOHN HUTCHINSON had devised a dwelling-house, called Holgate Cottage, to his children, including a son named JOHN GEORGE HUTCHINSON, and this son had died intestate in his father's lifetime, leaving a widow and a son, JOHN THOMAS HUTCHINSON, his heir-at-law, and the point at issue was whether, notwithstanding the fact that the husband had died before his father, his widow was not entitled to dower in respect of his share of the cottage by virtue of sect. 33 of the Wills Act, which enacts as follows: "Where any person being a child or other issue of the testator to whom any real or personal estate shall be devised or bequeathed for any estate

or interest not determinable at or before the death of such person, shall die in the lifetime of the testator leaving issue, and any such issue of such person shall be living at the time of the death of the testator, such devise or bequest shall not lapse, but shall take effect as if the death of such person had happened immediately after the death of the testator, unless a contrary intention shall appear by the will." Of course, if the husband had not really died until after his father, his share would have actually vested in him, and there could be no question but that his widow would be entitled to her dower; but, as this was not so, the learned judge decided against her, saying: "I think I must consider that when the Wills Act was passed it was not intended to do more than provide against a lapse. If it had been intended that every consequence should follow from the assumption that the devisee died immediately after the death of the testator, there would be no object in inserting the words such devise shall not lapse.' Therefore, in order to give effect to those words, some limitation must be put on the words directing that the devise shall take effect as if the devisee died after the death of the testator, and the only limitation which can in reason be suggested is that the words shall be construed as referring to a lapse and a lapse only." If his Honour's attention had been called to the case of Eager v. Furnival (L. Rep. 17 Ch. Div. 115) he could not have decided in the way he did, for in that case, which is strictly analogous to the present one, JESSEL, M.R. held that where a testator devised freeholds to his daughter in fee for her separate use, and she died intestate in his lifetime having had issue capable of inheritance, her husband, by virtue of the aforesaid section of the Wills Act, was entitled to an estate by the curtesy.

BUILDING SOCIETIES AND THE INCOME TAX. THE Board of Inland Revenue having received a check on their endeavours to obtain income tax from the funds intended for the benefit of the poor Moravian Brethren, by the decision of the House of Lords in the case of The Commissioners for Special Purposes of the Income Tax v. Pemsel (reported in the Times newspaper of the 21st July), appear to have turned their attention to building societies. It must be admitted that these societies have hitherto to a great extent escaped the payment of income tax; and the remarks of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the House of Commons on Tuesday, the 16th Aug. 1887, in reply to questions addressed to him by Mr. Sinclair and Mr. D. Acland on the subject of the liability to income tax of workingmen's co-operative associations, indicate the reason for the exemption. He is reported to have said:

As there was a great deal of misapprehension with regard to the levying of income tax upon co-operative associations, he was glad to have the opportunity of stating the real facts. Every shareholder in a co-operative society was liable to income tax if his income from all sources was over £150 a year. Where a society consisted to any great extent of shareholders whose income was over £150 it had been found convenient to assess the association direct, and the existing law had been framed to secure this as far as practicable. Where, however, the society was com posed mainly of persons whose annual income was under £150, the trouble and expense of assessing the duty to, the association only to return it in

most cases to the shareholders, far outweighed the advantage derived from direct assessment, while the liability of any of these shareholders whose income was over £150 was not affected. In the same way a partner in any business, whatever might be the profits of his firm, was entitled to exemption from income tax if his income was under £150, and any duty levied on his profits as part of those of the firm would be returned. There was, therefore, no exemption of co-operative associations, but the tax was not levied directly upon them because in most cases it would have to be returned.

Now, in the case of most building societies the great majority of shareholders are working men with incomes rarely reaching £100 a year, and consequently such societies, although not legally exempt from payment of income tax, have hitherto generally escaped the unwelcome attention of the Board of Inland Revenue. But this state of things, it appears, is now to be put an end to. If building societies cannot, without undue expense and trouble, be made to pay income tax in the ordinary way, then they must be approached in some other direction. By what oblique method can we best squeeze income tax out of them is the question which the Board appear now to be endeavouring to ascertain. One obvious plan is to induce these societies to enter into an agreement with the Board respecting the payment of income tax. Accordingly a document entitled "Memorandum of Arrangements with respect to income tax in case of building societies has been drawn up by the Board, which memorandum is in the following terms:

1. All interest to be exempted where the borrowing member is exempt by reason of his total income from all sources being below £150, the society undertaking to see that the borrowers make the usual claim to the surveyor of taxes for the district in which they reside, and otherwise afford facilities to the surveyor or surveyors for the requisite verification of the claims.

2. Where the borrowers are not so exempt, the properties on which the interest is secured by mortgage or otherwise to be retained in charge according to their respective annual values, and the society to allow the borrower to deduct the tax applicable to the interest.

3. All property in the society's hands as mortgagees in possession to be exempted.

4. The society to furnish a statement to be verified by the board's surveyor of taxes once a year, of the interest paid or credited to depositors and members whose incomes amount to £150 a year and upwards from whom the society wonld have the right to deduct the tax, whether the society exercised the right or not.

5. The society to furnish a list of the interest received from the borrowers to whom the society has allowed the tax, with all necessary particulars of the properties assessed, and vouchers in the shape of certificates of deduction of the tax on the annexed Form No. 185.

6. Where the total interest received (par. 5) on which the society has allowed the tax exceeds the total interest paid or credited (par. 4), and on which the society has the right to retain the tax, the society to be repaid the duty on the difference, and where the converse is the case, that is, where the tax, which ought to be retained by the society, exceeds the tax allowed by the society, the society to render a return of the difference for assessment under schedule D. of the Income Tax Acts.

Unceasing endeavours have been made by the Board to induce building societies to enter into that agreement. But, apart from the fact that the meaning of some of its terms is not altogether plain, it is evident that it would considerably increase the work of the directors and officers of the society entering into it, and augment the expenses of management, which it is of the utmost importance for the welfare of such societies to keep as low as possible. It is no wonder, therefore, that many building societies decline the proposed arrangement ; and coercion appears to be the method adopted by the Board for bringing them to reason. In furtherance of this plan, advanced shareholders of a building society, who by reason that their total incomes from all sources are under £150 a year are exempt from payment of income tax, have had demands made upon them for payment of small sums as income tax in respect of so much of the periodical instalments which they pay to the society in repayment of the advances made to them, as represents interest on the advances. This appears a novel and arbitrary proceeding, and raises the question whether the Board has power to compel advanced shareholders, not otherwise liable to income tax, to pay the tax solely in respect of such portion of the periodical instalments payable by them to the society as is presumed to represent interest. If the Board has such power the building societies will have to yield.

Granting that the shareholders may deduct income tax on the same principle, when making their payments to the society, it is obvious that this raises difficult questions of account between them. It must be remembered that, in some cases, the instalments amount only to the sum of 28. a week, and minute calculations would be required in many, if not most, instances.

The shareholders, too, would not long submit to be harassed in that way; and building societies would cease to flourish. Such proceedings, therefore, ought not to be acquiesced in by building societies and their shareholders, unless there is clear legal authority to support them. And where is such authority to be found? Let the Board point to any section of the Income Tax Acts which, in plain terms, confers this arbitrary power, or to any reported case in which it has been held that a shareholder of a building society, not otherwise liable to income tax, is bound to pay the tax, under schedule A., now demanded. If the Board can do this, it may be assured that no better method of carrying out its objects could be devised. The societies and their advisers, having satisfied themselves that the Board was acting within its powers, would at once submit. But if, on the other hand, the Board has no such authority to justify its action. let it cease its injurious attacks upon societies which play an important part in the promotion of thrift.

THE INSPECTION OF AN ADVERSARY'S
BANKERS' BOOKS.

IT may be doubted whether the nature and effect of that useful
statute, the Bankers' Books Evidence Act 1879 become more
easy to understand in view of the utterances of the two judges
who decided Emmott v. The Star Company Limited (Times,
Dec. 2, 1892). The actual decision is one which seems to
commend itself naturally to the reader's mind, but it is accom-
panied with statements as to the effect of the Act which both
go far to nullify the effect of the decision itself, and also do
not appear over easy to reconcile with the view of the Act
which has been expressed in the Court of Appeal. The actual
decision is practically given in Lord Justice Smith's question :
If you libel a man, does that give you any right to ransack his
bankers' books? to which the Lord Justice and Lord Coleridge
unite to answer, No. The action was for statements in the
Star newspaper derogatory to the plaintiff's financial position,
and charging him with being, notwithstanding large preten-
sions, a man of no real means. Finding themselves defendants
in a libel action, the Star Company sought to justify their
allegations out of the plaintiff's own banking books, and applied
under sect. 7 of the above Act for permission to inspect such
accounts and take copies of entries in them. This Act, it will
be remembered, which replaced an earlier Act of 1876, had for
its object, or rather we should say for one of its objects, to get
rid of the highly inconvenient necessity which previously
existed, in cases where the evidence derivable from bankers'
books was wanted in any legal proceeding, to have the books
actually produced in court, although from their being in daily
use and containing the accounts of many other persons not
concerned in the action, their absence from the bank would
greatly embarrass the current business. The Act (sect. 3)
renders copies of any entries in bankers' books evidence of
the entries and of the matters stated in the entries, and after
providing (in sects. and 5) for the due verification of the
copies, goes on to enact that a banker
shall not, in any legal
proceeding to which the bank is not a party, be compellable to
produce any bankers' book the contents of which can be proved
under this Act," unless by order of a judge made for special
cause. And it then proceeds to provide, in the section most
immediately in question, that, "on the application of any party
to a legal proceeding, a court or judge may order that such
party be at liberty to inspect and take copies of any entries in
a bankers' book for any of the purposes of such proceeding."
Now, if the case had merely amounted to deciding that,
where a person charged with libel seeks to make out his case by
examining the banking account of the person libelled, this is an
unwarrantable claim, and such as a judge, in the exercise of the
discretion given him by the Act to make or refuse an order for
inspection, may properly refuse, there would not be occasion for
much comment. Such a claim savours of adding injury to
insult, and a judge might naturally enough hold that this was
not a case in which it was intended that litigants should have a
new right not enjoyed before the Act. It is true, indeed, that
Vice-Chancellor Bacon, in Re Marshfield; Marshfield v. Hutch-
ings (54 L. T. Rep. N. S. 564; 32 Ch. Div. 499) laid it down that
anyone who could formerly issue a subpoena duces tecum to a
banker to produce his books and attend to be examined on them

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