sit in Chancery for the distribution of the residue of the estate of the Late Richard Alexander Oswald of Auchencruive, in which the Baroness de Blonay and others, as representatives of the late Lady Lillias Oswald, Mr Oswald's widow, claim aliment as due to her from his estate, from the diy of Mr Oswald's death in June 1841 to the term of Martinmas next ceeding. No sum was ever received by Lady Lillias Oswald to acant of aliment to that date, nor was any claim for it made during her time, she having survived her husband for four years, nor for ten years after her death. By marriage-contract in 1817, Mr Oswald bound self to pay Lady Lillias an annuity of L.2000 after his death, and a S of L.2000 in lieu of household furniture and of mournings. These sans were to be accepted in full of all her legal claims except aliment. By bond of annuity in 1830, he settled on Lady Lillias a further annuity L.2000 out of his entailed estates of Auchencruive, and by his trust isposition in 1838 he bequeathed to her the liferent of his whole estates. The said annuities, sum of money, and liferent have been paid to Lady as or her representatives; and the question now raised is whether, in ition, her representatives are entitled to claim aliment from the date Mr Oswald's death till the first term thereafter. Mr Oswald was traing in Switzerland when he died, and his sick-bed and funeral exposes, etc., were paid out of his estate. The expenses of keeping up the ablishment at Auchencruive were also paid by his trustees. The questions upon which the opinion of the Court is asked are―‘1. Whether the legal personal representatives of the said Lady Lillias wald are entitled to make any claim against the estate of the testator, hard Alexander Oswald, for her aliment from the day of the decease the testator to the Martinmas next succeeding that day? and 2. What ant (if any) ought to have been paid during the life of the said Lady as Oswald from the estate of the testator to her, in respect of such ht (if any) to aliment?' J The Court were of opinion that, according to the true construction of Oswald's will, his intention was, that this liferent provision should be satisfaction of his widow's claim for aliment, and that Lady Lillias, ing accepted of the provision, and having never claimed aliment during lifetime, she must be held to have accepted of the provision in satisaction of her claim for aliment. Lady Lillias having thus taken the prosion in satisfaction of her aliment in conformity with the implied intenSion of the testator, no claim for aliment could be made by her during her fetime, nor by her representatives after her death. The answers to the estions in the case would therefore be-1. That the representatives of Lady Lillias were not entitled to make any claim for aliment; and 2. That no sam ought to have been paid to her during her lifetime in respect of such aliment. English Cases. CONTRACT.-Upon sale by defendant to plaintiffs of a business of a horsehair manufacturer, defendant by written contract agreed not to buy, sell, manufacture, or directly or indirectly interfere in the trade or business of a horsehair manu facturer, except for the benefit of plaintiffs; and subsequently, in a deed of assignment (executed in pursuance of the previous contract), defendant co venanted that he would not, directly or indirectly, carry on the business of horsehair manufacturer within 200 miles from B. without the consent in writ ing of plaintiffs, except for their benefit and at their request. Defendant besides being a manufacturer of horsehair, was, at the time of the sale, general dealer in unmanufactured horsehair; he also purchased and sold mantfactured horsehair, which was usual both with dealers and manufacturers. I was held by the M. R., upon evidence as to the mode of carrying on the busines that the limit of 200 miles was reasonable; also that defendant had sold so mach of the business as belonged to that of a horsehair manufacturer, though forming part also of the business of a horsehair dealer; and that he must be restraint from the purchase and sale of manufactured horsehair.—(Harms v. Parsons 32 L. J., Ch. 247.) INCLOSURE ACTS.-Trustees of settled estates, with a power of sale and er change under which the sale monies were made applicable in satisfaction charges on the settled estates, and as to the surplus in the purchase of other lands, sold a portion of the settled estates and paid the proceeds to a tenant for life, who expended the greater part thereof upon allotments made under the Inclosure Acts in fencing, draining, road-making, etc., and died without create ing any charges under the Acts. It was held by the M. R., the money was not expended in accordance with the provisions of the settlement either in satisfac tion of an existing charge or in the purchase of lands; but that, though da forms of the Inclosure Acts had not been complied with, any sums property expended for the purposes mentioned in the Acts, not exceeding L.5 per acr ought to be allowed to the executors of the tenant for life.-(Vernon v. Et Manvers, 32 L. J., Ch. 244.) INTEREST.-Under the Defence Act, 1860, certain lands were taken absolutely by the Secretary of State for War, and other lands were required to be ke free from buildings. The amount of compensation for both classes of land w agreed upon; and plaintiffs, by their bill, claimed interest at L.5 per cent. et the amount paid as compensation for the lands required to be kept free fr buildings from the date of the agreement to the time of payment. But it wa held, on demurrer, that the compensation paid for lands required to be keclear of buildings was only a payment for damage, and did not carry interst -(Earl of Suffolk v. Lewis, 32 L. J., Ch. 232.) JURISDICTION.-By a concession from the Turkish Government, certain perser were authorized to form a bank, to be called the Bank of Turkey, with the s privilege of issuing paper-money and bank-notes in Turkey. Shortly after wards, and before the Bank of Turkey had commenced business, the Turki Government granted a similar concession to the directors of the Ottoman Bas. A bill was filed by the Bank of Turkey against the Ottoman Bank and th Sultan, seeking a declaration of the rights of the Bank of Turkey, and an injunction to restrain the Ottoman Bank from issuing paper-money or bank-notein Turkey. But it was held by Wood, V. C., on demurrer, the Court has jurisdiction to interfere with the acts of a foreign Sovereign, who, havi entered into a contract with British subjects, makes a grant in derogation that contract, nor to restrain British subjects from doing in a foreign country whatever they are authorized to do by the sovereign power there.—(Glaist va v. The Ottoman Bank, 32 L. J., Ch. 228.) THE JOURNAL OF WHY JURY TRIAL IN CIVIL CAUSES HAS FAILED. NOTICE of trial was given in twenty-three cases for the July sittings i 1863 of the First Division of the Court of Session. In three of hem the notice was discharged by the Court. The remaining twenty ses were set down for trial; but of these, only eleven survived a reek. The rest disappeared one by one, being compromised, withrawn, or abandoned. Two of the eleven so left, began, but were ithdrawn from the jury within half an hour after the trials had mmenced. And the process of compromise and abandonment roceeds thus at every sittings! Can it be said that this is a satisactory state of things? The cases go on with vigour enough, until the day of trial is sed; and then the courage of the agent and of his client begins to evaporate; and, singularly enough, the courage of the opposite agent and of the opposite client is at the same moment undergoing a inilar process. And thus, in a state of alarm, nervousness, and nxiety, the parties approach one another for a settlement, each ving up one-half of his pretensions, and each taking the burden his own costs. The result of course is, that in about a week after the list of jury trials for the sittings is published, one-half of them isappear from among existing things. The remainder-composed very frequently of desperate cases that will not settle, or of cases where one of the parties has nothing to lose though the verdict be against him—are got through in a fortnight; and then the legal actors quit the stage, the curtain falls, the lights are put out, the oors are shut, and the long vacation begins. VOL. VII. NO. LXXXI.-SEPTEMBER 1863. 3 N It is a great mistake to suppose that the unfortunate individuals who have not got their cases tried, but have been driven into silence and sacrifice of their rights, return to their homes satisfied with their experience of our courts of law. It is a great misfortune to a nation, that it should have a legal machinery for administering justice which compels men to withdraw their cases from trial, simply because they believe that the trial would be a lottery,-to be decided, not according to justice, but according to the preje dices, the whims, the caprices, and the ignorance of an incompetente tribunal. Litigation is no doubt a great evil; but it is the whole some means whereby the fever of contention is abated, and is the substitute in modern days for the rude fashion of our ancestors who administered justice each for himself. A fair trial, and a judicial settlement of disputes, are admirable coolers of the passions but a trial which, either rightly or wrongly, is regarded by ninetenths of the people as no trial at all, but as a coarse medium for arriving at a conclusion, is, so far from being a cooler, a fieres irritant, intensifying anger into rage. It is impossible to explain the numerous abandonments of cases on the very eve of trial, by saying that the parties then come to know the defects in their proof and the difficulties they will have to surmount. Every lawyer knows perfectly well, that cases which, before a tribunal acting under a sense of responsibility, would be carried on to judgment with the certainty of victory, are brought to premature death simply by the dread uncertainty of the appeal to the twelve blacksmiths, farmers, tailors, and publicans, who constitute our Edinburgh juries. Of course, all the complaints against jury trial in civil cases are now something like whipping the dead horse. We pretend here to say nothing new; and before we began, Lord Melbourne's philosophy came up very prominently to the mind, Can't the matter be let alone?' or, as it has been better put, 'What a comfort it is, now an! then, that can't be helped! It is the root and marrow of all philo sophy. Your practical man, poor wretch, will try to help this an that, and torment his soul with ways and means, and preventives and forestalling. Your philosopher quietly says-It can't be helped: if it ought to be, it will be; if it is, it ought to be. We did not make the world, and we are not responsible for it. There is the sum an! substance of all true wisdom, and the epitome of all that has been said or written thereon, from Philo the Jew to Hypatia the Gentile."1 'Hypatia. All this may be very true in matters indifferent; but in matters upon which a profession depends for its existence the case is altered: duty then is stimulated by interest, and the 'let alone' system is napplicable. But even in such cases it would be useless to repeat the old well-worn platitudes, were it not that there appears at present a prospect of giving them practical effect. There is now a bill before Parliament for the removal of all defects, grievances, and abuses in the administration of justice, and which is to make it easy and inexpensive for evermore. All technicalities and obstructions in the application of the law, are to be hunted away to Chaos and Old Night; and surely this is the opportunity, long waited for, of having a count and reckoning with the abominable old incubus which has survived the invectives of forty-eight years. There is a limit to the power of thrashing a feather bed; but really it infuses new life into one, when there is a prospect of finishing the job creditably after all. On such an occasion, 'Patience is the virtue of an ass, Who trots beneath his burden, and is quiet.' It is but just, however, at the outset to admit that our system of ary trial in civil cases has great advantages. The verdict of a jury brings finality, and in a certain class of cases the verdict is always sure; so that in such cases any trial is unnecessary, and they should at once be settled when the summons is served. This is a great comfort; it saves worry and expense. These are cases having reference to claims of right of public road crer a gentleman's estate; claims by a widow against the employers f her husband, for the destruction of his life through negligence in their mine; cases of seduction, where the woman is good-looking 2nd appears as a witness; a witness; cases against insurance companies, where they resist payınent of their policies; and cases where a lodging-house keeper claims rent against a gentleman who had been his lodger, and who had been obliged to quit by impudence and thieving of his goods. In all these cases the verdict is quite certain in favour of the pursuer, whatever be the evidence, and whatever be the judge's charge. The judge may use any amount of skill, rajolery, and professed deference to the opinions of the jurors aforesaid, without the least result, if his charge be in favour of the defender. In the majority of other cases, the jury bring in their verdict ccording to the opinion of the presiding judge; but sometimes |