would have a Court near the High Court of Justice. They would be men whose reputation and ability as lawyers is equal to most of the High Court judges, for there is a group of distinguished men who of late years have gone upon the County Court bench. There is reason to doubt whether the new circuit arrangements will really leave a sufficient staff of judges at the High Court to transact its business, and hence there would be a steady inclination to transfer a greater and greater proportion of ordinary litigation to the central County Court. We may then live to see this curious spectacle, the County Court judges turned into a fixed body doing High Court business, and Her Majesty's judges par excellence travelling about trying a class of cases not above the ordinary County Court level. With the glorious weather which preceded the long vacation this year we do not need pity them, indeed; for absence from London at such a time is a pleasure which should only be reserved for the virtuous. In winter and autumn, however, the case is different; but the judges have wisely provided that when any of their number has been absent on circuit for thirty-five days, the victim may insist on some brother from London coming down to take his place and enable him to return to the pleasures and gaieties of the town. Thus the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb. Appointments, Business Changes, &c. DUNFERMLINE. Society of Law Agents.-At a meeting of law agents, held in the Sheriff Court-room on Monday, 26th June, under the presidency of Mr. W. Simpson, it was resolved that their society, which has been in abeyance for a considerable number of years, should be resuscitated. They accordingly formed themselves into a new society to be named the Society of Law Agents of Dunfermline District of Fife. The objects of the society, according to the conditions agreed upon, are-(1) to provide a representative body to conserve the interests and protect the rights of the members of the legal profession who practice in the Dunfermline district of Fifeshire in relation to all matters affecting them as practitioners; (2) to consider legislative and other measures affecting the profession or of importance to the society; (3) to promote efficiency, expedition, and convenience in the procedure of Court; (4) to provide for the regular appointment of agents to act for the poor; and (5) to co-operate with the Incorporated Society of Law Agents in Scotland in regard to all or any of the above matters. The office-bearers were thereafter elected as follows:-Dean, Mr. William Simpson; vice-dean, Mr. Daniel Gorrie; secretary and treasurer, Mr. David D. Blair; council, the Dean, Vice-Dean, and Secretary, and Messrs. Andrew Burt, Alexander Fraser, and James Currie Macbeth. THE SCOTTISH LAW REVIEW. VOL. IX. OCTOBER, 1893. No. 106. CORONERS' INQUESTS FOR SCOTLAND. THE intelligent foreigner touring in Great Britain finds many things to surprise him. The variations of language between the south of England and the north of Scotland-Cockney, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Lowland Scotch (with its innumerable dialects), and Gaelic-might seem to be greater than the geographical limits make necessary or even justify. The flatness of middle England would not prepare the tourist for the mountains of Cumberland, and the fertile Lothians would contrast strangely with the barrenness of the West and North Highlands. But these contrasts would excite less surprise than the racial, social, and legal differences which exist in the tight little island where there is so little room and so much company. The inquiring tourist would be surprised to learn that things ecclesiastical are so arranged that, though the country is protestant, the prelate of the south has little in common, and no sympathy at all, with the presbyter of the north; and that in things juridical the differences are so great that a man learned in the law and legal practice of Scotland would not be a safe adviser in the simplest case over the border. Till Home Rule rose so suddenly in favour, in some quarters, there was hope of amendment in the department of law, for it used to be the aim of legal reformers to assimilate the laws of England and Scotland; but perhaps we may now expect the "national" feeling to extinguish, or at least damp, what we may call the imperial sentiment that tends to unification. From recent events we learn that a section of Scotsmen still favour one item of legal assimilation. They want to introduce into Scotland the equivalent of the English Coroner's Inquest in cases of accidental death connected with industrial occupations. We need not here inquire into the origin of the demand, nor trouble ourselves to find whether the motive is legal reform or the advancement of trades-union interests. The only questions we need consider are these: Would the change be an improvement? and, Do the public desire the change? Let us take the last first. Do the people of Scotland desire the change? If the composition of the deputation that interviewed the Lord Advocate on the subject not long ago is scrutinised, the scrutineer will find that it was not representative of any interest except trade, or rather trades'-union. No legal body was represented, yet lawyers must know a good deal about this subject and have opinions on it. In the nature of the case, however, there are few people interested to such an extent as to induce them to take up the subject on behalf of mere legal reform. Are trades'-unionists amongst the few? By their action they say that they are, in certain cases. The general public do not seem to care much about the question, and have not even expressed dissatisfaction with present arrangements; so, if these are to be altered, the champions of industrial interests must show cause. When a man dies suddenly, the Procurator-Fiscal, on behalf of the Crown, inquires into the cause of death, and if the Lord Advocate or his depute is satisfied from the precognitions taken and evidence obtained by the Fiscal that no one is to blame, the order issued from the Crown office is for "no further proceedings." The precognitions are taken in private, without the public or the press having any opportunity of directly influencing the scope or mode of the inquiry. It is quite certain that the relatives of the deceased man do not regret that the public have no admission to the inquiry and no information from the press except what is known by every one in the district. There may, perhaps, be a few whose ungratified curiosity causes them to fret at the privacy (they call it secrecy) of the proceedings, but everybody else is satisfied that Crown counsel sees that the public interest is not neglected. When a man dies from injuries received through accident of any kind, the private Crown inquiry is just as certain to be thorough in the public interest as in the case of a man who died in his bed. But it is quite conceivable, in the case of a man killed at his work, that a particular set of tradesmen have an interest to learn all the particulars of the accident. Their interest may lie in the arrangements for carrying on their work, and the risks to life and limb arising therefrom; or they may feel interested in getting compensation for the heirs of their deceased fellow-workman from the party who may be responsible for the accident. They have no special interest in the question whether any one is criminally to blame for the death. That is a question for the whole community, and the Lord Advocate and his subordinates may safely be left to deal with it in the public interest. So far as we know, the people of Scotland are quite pleased with existing arrangements, and it would be curious if they were not, for the painful and melancholy events to which the inquiries refer are dealt with by an officer accustomed to investigate, who has no bias any way, except, perhaps, in the direction of making and pressing a charge on the slenderest grounds-who accepts information from every quarter and knows pretty well where to look for it-who goes about his work without fuss or unnecessary injury to the feelings of the dead man's relatives-and who does all that is needed in the public interest at a minimum of cost to the public. The small section who have proposed the change in accident cases suggested that the inquiry is often made by a man who does not understand the things he has to deal with. Perhaps it is on the analogy of Board of Trade inquiries in maritime cases that the malcontents think a jury containing specialists should assist the Procurator-Fiscal, and that without such assistance the Fiscal is sure to err. But the analogy does not hold, for in a Board of Trade inquiry somebody is always on his trial-a master or mate and often two masters or mates or the ownerswhereas in the Fiscal's inquiries nobody is ever on his trial. A public officer does not need to be an engineer to understand a boiler explosion, or a miner to comprehend a pit accident. A trained lawyer, if he does not know all about the work and appliances of every trade, at least knows the limits of his own knowledge and how to supply his defect of technical information. The malcontent deputation did not mention any instance of error through want of skill on the part of the officers of inquiry under the present system. One would have thought something of this kind necessary to support their demand; but neither the deputation nor the Lord Advocate seemed to think of this, which is, to say the least, curious, especially when we reflect that the Lord Advocate is himself the head of the department whose inquiries were spoken of with so little respect. Perhaps the Lord Advocate, whose duties in this department are performed by the Advocates-Depute, forgot his own theoretical connection with the impugned form of inquiry and his responsibility for its management. If one or two Advocates-Depute and ProcuratorsFiscal had been present, things might have taken a different and more proper turn. From the extreme complaisancy of the Lord Advocate on the occasion, one is tempted to ask whether his replies came from the first (Scottish) law officer of the Crown or from the member for Clackmannan. The trades'-union leaders desire public inquiries in the interest of claims for compensation, as one of the deputation made clear by a remark about "pinning responsibility for accidents down in "the proper quarter." But they surely forget that already claims are made against employers almost without exception in every case of accident, whether fatal or not. The Crown inquiry is to find if there has been a crime-from murder down to culpable homicide-but an inquiry whether any one is liable in civil damages is so different in its scope that, in our opinion, it could not with propriety or advantage be tacked on to the investigation required in the public interest for the discovery of crime. Moreover, the heirs of the deceased person suffer from no lack of legal assistance, which is always at hand and often in competitive superabundance, to obtain from the employer such damages as may be due, with expenses, or such damages as may not be due to avoid expenses. But if the deputation had wanted the change in the interest of the mechanical arrangements for carrying on the work of the various industrial occupations for which they profess to speak, their case is no stronger than we have found it on the claimfor-compensation ground. Are tradesmen and their leaders so ignorant or so stupid as not to know where appliances are faulty unless the inquiry in cases of fatal accident informs them? They may by their demand call themselves so, but nobody else would be safe to say it, especially of the leaders. The inquest they desire is applicable only to fatal accidents, whereas mechanical arrangements are involved in nearly all accidents. In the interest of tradesmen is it worth while to investigate publicly and exceptionally one case in ten, twenty, or thirty, and for this purpose to alter a system which has worked to the entire satisfaction of the general public for generations, and costs a tithe of what the new arrangement would cost? And would the new plan disclose anything which tradesmen cannot find out for themselves independently of private inquiry or public inquest? Surely not. For example, a miner is killed while below during his working hours, and his fellow-workers wish to know the precise cause of his death, and whether the working arrangements or appliances are defective or were neglected. Is it possible that an inquest by a jury would disclose anything not known to the other workmen? Where is the jury to get information not at the command of the other workmen? The inquest might very readily be made the occasion of thrashing out rival and conflicting theories of the cause of the accident, but it is not easy to suppose that an |