in all respects in that behalf specified and contained in the Court of Chancery, Ireland, Regulation Act, 1850," in relation to the general orders to be made by the Chancellor, with the assistance of the Master of the Rolls, under that act.

26. The Chancellor may, with the advice and assistance of the Master of the Rolls and the Judge of Appeal, or of either of them, from time to time frame and cause to be printed and circulated forms of proceedings and documents in relation to the business of the court, and may direct any proceedings or documents to be printed and made available for the use of all parties interested.

27. So much of section sixteen of the "Court of Chancery, Ireland, Regulation Act, 1850," as provides that the Master, in cases within the said section, shall not make orders for the distribution or payment of any share of money, shall from the 1st of January, 1857, be repealed, and from and after the said 1st January, 1857, the Masters shall in all cases to which the said section applies have and exercise the jurisdiction by the said section conferred upon them, without any such restriction as aforesaid.

28. In case the account now standing to the credit of the Accountant General of the Court in the books of the Bank of Ireland, termed the Suitors' Fee Fund Account, should be inadequate to the payment of the charges now chargeable thereon, the amount of such charges beyond what can be so satisfied thereout shall be charged and chargeable and paid and payable upon and out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, by way of advance in aid of the said Suitors' Fee Fund Account.

CURSITOR BARON.

(19 & 20 Vict. c. 86.)

The following are the title, preamble, and section of the act:

An Act to abolish the Office of Cursitor Baron of the Exchequer. [29th July, 1856.

WHEREAS the office of Cursitor Baron of her Majesty's Court of Exchequer at Westminster is now vacant by the death of the Right Hon. George Bankes, and the duties thereof having for the most part ceased, it is expedient that such office be abolished: Be it enacted as follows:

1. The said office of Cursitor Baron is hereby abolished, and any duty or act which might have been performed or done by such Cursitor Baron, if this act had not been passed, shall and may be performed and done by the said court, or any baron of the coif, or any officer of the said Court of Exchequer, in such manner and at such times as the said court or the Lord Chief Baron thereof shall from time to time direct.

CORRUPT PRACTICES PREVENTION.

(19 & 20 Vict. c. 84.)

511

ment;" and it was thereby provided that such act should continue in force for one year next after the passing thereof, and thenceforth to the end of the then next session of Parliament; and whereas it is expedient that the said act should be continued: Be it enacted as follows:

1. The said act shall be continued until the 10th day of August, 1857, and thenceforth to the end of the then next session of Parliament.

STAMPING BANKERS' DRAFTS.

SOME questions have arisen regarding the power of affixing a penny stamp on a banker's draft after it has been issued in order to transmit it beyond the fifteen miles, within which no stamp is required. We therefore subjoin the three sections of the 17 & 18 Vict. c. 83, which relate to these important negotiable instruments.

The 7th section recites that under and by virtue of certain acts relating to stamp duties certain drafts or orders for the payment of any sum of money to the bearer on demand, drawn upon any banker or person acting as a banker residing or transacting the business of a banker within fifteen miles of the place where such drafts or orders are issued, are exempted from all stamp duty, and that it is expedient to prevent the negotiating or circulating of such drafts or orders unstamped at any place beyond the distance of fifteen miles from the place where the same are made payable; and it is enacted "that no such draft or order as aforesaid shall, unless the same be duly stamped as a draft or order, be remitted or sent to any place beyond the distance of fifteen miles in a direct line from the bank or place at which the same is made payable, or be received in payment, or as a security, or be otherwise negotiated or circulated at any place beyond the said distance; and if any person shall remit or send any draft or order not duly stamped as aforesaid to any place beyond the distance aforesaid, or shall receive the same in payment or as a security, or in any manner negotiate or circulate the same at any such last-mentioned place, he shall forfeit the sum of £50.

But the 8th section provides that it shall be lawful for any person who shall receive any such draft or order as aforesaid, at any place within the said distance of fifteen miles from the bank or place at which the same is made payable, which draft or order shall have been lawfully issued unstamped, to affix thereto a proper adhesive stamp, and to cancel such stamp by writing thereon his name, or the initial letters of his name, and thereupon such draft or order may lawfully be received and negotiated at any place beyond the distance aforesaid, anything herein contained notwithstanding.

Then the 10th section enacts that the adhesive stamps provided by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue for denoting the duty of 1d. payable on

An Act to continue the Corrupt Practices Prevention Act, 1854. [29th July, 1856. WHEREAS an act was passed in the session of Parliament 17 & 18 Vict. c. 102, "To Consolidate and Amend the Laws relating to Bribery, Treating, and undue Influence at Elections of Members of Parlia

money to the bearer or to order on demand respectively may lawfully be used for the purpose of denoting the like amount of duty, either on a receipt or on such draft or order as aforesaid, without regard to the special appropriation thereof for the other of such instruments by having its name on the face thereof, anything in any act or acts contained to the contrary notwithstanding.

512

LAW OF ATTORNEYS.

LIABILITY TO ACCOUNT TO THIRD PERSONS FOR MONIES RECEIVED ON BEHALF OF CLIENT.

A BILL of exchange for £524 odd, drawn by Barton and Co., and accepted by Ainsworth and Co., had been indorsed to the plaintiffs, who discounted it for Barton and Co. Before it became due, Ainsworth and Co. stopped payment, and ultimately made a composition with their creditors, whereby it was arranged that they should pay 13s. 4d. in the pound, viz., 5s. in cash, and the remainder by promissory notes at various dates, payable to the order of Barton, and indorsed by him in all cases where his name was on the original bills. Barton and Co. were unable to take up the bill for £524 upon maturity, but on the day appointed for payment of the dividend by Ainsworth and Co., Barton called on the plaintiffs, and obtained the bill from them, in order to procure the dividend, and handed it together with other bills to the defendant, who was an attorney, and acted for him in his arrangement with Ainsworth and Co., obtaining an advance of £200 in anticipation of the dividend. The defendant received the dividend and a promissory note for the remainder of the composition, debiting Barton with the advance, and crediting him for the dividend.

The plaintiffs then brought trover, and on the trial before Willes, J., a verdict was found for the defendant, whereupon a rule was obtained, upon leave reserved to enter it for the plaintiff.

Pollock, L. C. B., said: "The rule must be discharged. I am of opinion that the view taken by the learned judge was correct. All that was done by the defendant was done by him in a ministerial capacity. I cannot treat an overdue bill of exchange in the hands of the drawee, he being a party to it, and the apparent owner, like a horse or a chattel in the hands of one who is not the owner. An overdue bill, drawn by A. on B., in the hands of a stranger, is a different matter. There the bill was returned by the plaintiffs, the indorsees to Barton, the drawer, with all the names, except those of Barton and the acceptor, struck out. What the defendant did, was done by Barton's authority, and as his servant. The defendant was not aware, and had no means of knowing, that Barton was not the real owner of the bill. He advanced money on it, and he was justified in doing so, because the bill was in the hands of the drawee, who had an apparent right to it. He stopped a portion of the money received to repay the advance which had been made by him. What he did in getting payment for the bill was merely done by him as Barton's agent, and cannot be treated as the act of a wrongdoer."

Symonds v. Atkinson, 1 Hurlstone and N. 146.

NOTES ON THE COMMON LAW PROCEDURE ACT, 1852.

SUGGESTION ON DEATH OF CLAIMANT IN EJECTMENT.

ON the trial of an action of ejectment, a verdict was taken for the claimant, subject to a special case, but after the special case was set down for argument, and before the case had come on in its turn, the claimant died.

The court said that the case would keep its place in the paper, but that the argument would not be heard until a suggestion of the death of the claimant

had been entered by his legal personal representative, pursuant to the 15 & 16 Vict. c. 76, s. 194. Dennison v. Holiday, 1 Hurlstone and N. 61.

SERVICE OF WRIT UNDER S. 18 ON DEFENDANT IN ENGLAND.

A writ of summons was issued on November 2, 1852, against the defendant, who was believed to be in France, in the form prescribed by the 15 & 16 Vict. c. 76, s. 18, and in February, 1853, the plaintiff's attorney applied to the defendant's attorney for On March 19, the defendant's attorney entered an apan undertaking to appear, which he refused. pearance, but the plaintiff's attorney, not being aware of such appearance having been entered, renewed the writ from time to time, and on March 13, 1856, served the defendant with a copy at Leamington. It appeared that the defendant had continually resided in England since September, 1851.

The court held that there was no ground for setting aside the proceedings.

Green v. Braddyll, 1 Hurlstone and N. 69.

THE NEW SOLICITOR-GENERAL.

THE Right Hon. James Archibald Stuart Wortley, M.P., has been appointed Solicitor-General in the room of Sir Richard Bethell, appointed AttorneyGeneral. Mr. Wortley was called to the bar by the Hon. Society of the Inner Temple, 21st January, 1831, and went the northern circuit; he became a Queen's counsel in 1841; and was Judge Advocate General from Jan. to July, 1846. He was appointed SolicitorGeneral to the late Queen Dowager in 1845, and held that office until her Majesty's death in December, 1849. He was elected by the City of London as Recorder, September, 1850, and is standing counsel to the Bank of England.

The right hon. gentleman is the third son of the first Baron Wharncliffe; his mother was a daughter of the first Earl of Erne. He was born in St. James'ssquare, July 3rd, 1805. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated; B.A. in 1826, and M.A. 1831. He was elected M.P. for Halifax in 1835, but ceased to represent that borough in 1837, and was elected M.P. for Buteshire in 1842, which place he has represented ever since. In 1845, he took office under Sir Robert Peel's Government as Attorney-General of the Duchy of Lancaster; in 1846, he became a member of the Privy Council. On the 6th of May, 1846, he was married to the Hon. Jane Lawley, only daughter of the first Baron Wenlock. He is uncle to the present Lord Wharncliffe, who succeeded his father, the second baron (Mr. Stuart Wortley's elder brother), in 1845. His family is a younger branch of that of the Earl of Bute; his grandfather (Mr. James Stuart Wortley Mackenzie), whose last two names were taken with property which he acquired by marriage and inheritance, being a second son of the third Earl of Bute by the daughter of the celebrated Lady Wortley Montague.

By this appointment, the lucrative office of Recorder of London becomes vacant, and is vested in the Court of Aldermen. The present Common Serjeant, Mr. Russell Gurney, was second on the poll when Mr. Wortley was selected. Mr. Gurney, however, is not without a competitor. The names of Mr. Warren, Q. C., and Mr. Montague Chambers, Q. C., being Members of Parliament, are mentioned as under the consideration of the Court of Aldermen. It is reported that there will be much competition