REVISED

BEING

REPORTS

REPUBLICATION OF SUCH CASES

IN THE

ENGLISH COURTS OF COMMON LAW AND EQUITY,

FROM THE YEAR 1785,

AS ARE STILL OF PRACTICAL UTILITY.

EDITED BY

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

26 & 27 BEAVAN; 3 ELLIS & ELLIS; 9 WEEKLY
REPORTER.

LONDON:

SWEET AND MAXWELL, LIMITED, 3, CHANCERY LANE.

BOSTON:

LITTLE, BROWN & CO.

1911.

PREFACE TO VOL. CXXII.

THE most celebrated case in this volume is, or in its day was, Ex parte Anderson, p. 808. This Anderson had been a slave in Missouri, and in 1853 was pursued by a planter (not his owner) with the intent of exercising the right expressly given to all citizens of Missouri by the law of that State to capture a runaway, which Anderson apparently was at the moment. Being pressed hard by the planter and some of his negroes, Anderson defended himself with a knife, inflicted on the planter wounds which proved fatal, and disappeared. He found his way or was secretly conveyed to Canada, and in the course of 1860 was recognized in Toronto, and arrested on a charge of homicide with a view to his extradition to the Government of the United States (then in the latest days of Southern domination) under the treaty of 1842. Now manslaughter was not an extradition offence under this treaty; and it was at least arguable that by the law of Upper Canada the fugitive had not committed murder but manslaughter at most, as he was, in the view of a jurisdiction which did not recognize slavery, resisting an unlawful arrest. In point of fact, the warrant for commitment was framed, whether purposely or not, in terms avoiding the word "murder." Anderson was arrested on this warrant so framed, and the Court of Queen's Bench of Upper Canada held by a majority that the arrest was lawful and the prisoner liable to extradition: Re Anderson, 20 Upp. Can. Q. B. 124 (1). The dissenting judgment was based largely on matters of form; but the substantial question was

(1) No requisition had been made, at that time, by the United States or the ate of Missouri; the warrant was issued under a statutory power, though presumably in fact at the instigation of the Missouri authorities.