Law of Attorneys.-Law of Costs.-On Conditions of Sale.

ON CONDITIONS OF SALE.

385

IN the Legal Observer of the 8th instant, Mr. Caparn has very well described the complaint, but has, I think, insufficiently pointed out the remedy required which should be ap

by petition under the Act. It appears the de- band was originally liable, and his whole estate fendant was employed by Mrs. Brett as her was vested in them. He thought, therefore, solicitor, and also as her confidential agent, in that the husband was entitled to his costs. receiving, paying, and managing, on her behalf, the administration of an estate of which Rotherham v. Battson, 2 Smale & G. viii. she was executrix. There is no doubt that, where the relation of agency and confidence exists, and the transactions involve accounts, this Court recognises the right of the employer to proceed by bill or claim, to have the accounts taken under the direction of this Court. On that principle, the Court acted in the case of Lord Hardwicke v. Vernon, 14 Ves. 504-11, and in many other cases. If this defendant |plied. were not a solicitor, but merely a confidential Such remedy appears to me to be simple, and agent, the right to sue him by bill or claim for is the taking and acting on a more enlarged an account could not be disputed. I am unable and just view, of the provisions which would to see how the circumstance, that the defend-be really beneficial for the client's interest. ant, besides being the agent, acted also as the solicitor, can deprive his employer of that right. I shall, therefore, direct the account to be taken in the usual way, of all the defendant's receipts and payments while acting on behalf of Mrs. Brett in the matters in the bill mentioned; and also, that he do, within a month, deliver in his bill of costs against Mrs. Brett, and that it be taxed in the usual manner." Oddy v. Secker, 2 Smale & G. 193.

LAW OF COSTS.

OF HUSBAND AND HIS ASSIGNEES IN SUIT
BY WIFE.

THIS bill was filed by a married woman against the executor of a testator, to administer his estate, and for the settlement of the property to which she was entitled under the will, on herself and her children. Her husband and his assignees in bankruptcy were made defendants, and it appeared he owed the estate

about 400/.

The Vice-Chancellor Stuart said, that as the husband had received a portion of the estate in which his wife was interested, a settlement would be directed to be made of the whole of her share, and as her husband was a debtor to the estate he would give no costs to his assignees. With regard to the costs of the husband, as by a rule of the Court the plaintiff could not associate her husband with herself as a co-plaintiff, he was necessarily made a defendant. Then it was contended, that the husband being a debtor to the estate, he ought not to be allowed his costs, or at least that he ought to be allowed only to deduct them from his debt. But the husband was before the Court only in his character of husband, and not as a debtor. It was the duty of his assignees to answer all demands on which the hus

16 & 7 Vict. c. 73.

Taking such a view, it will be found that in this as in other matters, honesty is the best policy, and penny wisdom may be pound foolishness.

From a narrow and mistaken view, of the client's interest being too often taken, conditions are so framed as not only to throw on the purchaser many expenses which would be regularly borne by the vendor,-but to induce many intended bidders to fear, from the length and stringency of the conditions, that the expences so thrown on the purchaser would be much more heavy than they may ultimately turn out to be.

The result is, that some persons are altogether deterred from bidding, and the number of competitors is thus diminished; and even as to those who become bidders, a large estimate is made of the probable expenses they may have be proportionately reduced; the vendor losing to incur, and the amount of their biddings will in many cases much more than he would have to pay in the absence of the stringent conditions.

It may, however, be said, that it is necessary to protect the vendor against unfair requisitions, and I admit to its full extent that necessity. The end may, however, I think be readily attained without objectionable conditions.

The course I would suggest is, to provide by the conditions that half the expenses of compliance with requisitions should be borne by each party.

Under conditions so framed, the having to pay half the expense would deter a purchaser from making frivolous requisitions, and the vendor would be protected from needless expense ;-the amount he would have to disburse would also be more than repaid by the confidence the bidders would have in the fairness of the conditions, and the belief they would reasonably entertain that, with such conditions, the expenses would in all probability not be heavy.

The result would be, that the biddings would be made more freely, and without a large deduction for uncertain expenses, and the vendor would get the advantage of a full competition and a full price,-especially as the confidence felt in the fairness of the conditions would in

On Conditions of Sale.- Registered Joint-Stock Limited Companies.

all probability be extended to the representa- | responding diminution in their biddings to the tions in the particulars.

Registered Joint-Stock Limited Companies.-Suggestions for Amending the Law.

General Credit Company (Limited). Lending money on security. Promoter, Edward John Thompson, Watch-glass Manufacturer, 5, Percival Street, Clerkenwell.

387

SUGGESTIONS FOR AMENDING

THE LAW.

BY MR. SAMUEL SHAEN, OF KENNINGTON.

National Discount Company (Limited). Re-Read at the Meeting of Solicitors at Birmingham. ceiving money on deposit, and discounting bills. Promoter, Alexander Palmer M'Ewen, Gentleman, 25, Montpelier Square, Bromp

ton.

London Discount Company (Limited). Discounting bills and advancing money by way of loan. Promoter, William Galsworthy, Solicitor, 12, Old Jewry Chambers.

WITHOUT the pretension of an elaborate essay, a few cursory remarks are offered upon an important subject.

There is no branch of any profession more capable than that of attorneys and solicitors of united action, or to which such united action is more important, or may be rendered more serviceable, and no efforts should be lost to induce the members of our body to join this

The following are Law Reporting, News- association. paper, and Book Companies:

Union Publishing Company (Limited). Promoting the circulation of first class periodical productions. Promoters, George Johnson Ranson, Publisher, 9, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street; Richard Alfred March, Accountant, 29, Great James Street, Bedford Row; Thomas Dick, Gentleman, 9, Richmond-Terrace, Dalston.

The proposition once made by the Incorporated Law Society, by which a fund would have been raised for general purposes by payments from every solicitor, and by which, in effect, a corporation would have been formed, had much to recommend it; and some scheme of the kind is essential to the best interests of the body.

Though self-protection must naturally be the principal object with all law societies, yet the Law Reporting Society (Limited). Pub- large opportunity open to them to improve the lishing law reports. Promoters, John Bury law for the general benefit ought not to be Dasent, Barrister-at-Law, 11, Crown Office considered as in any degree a less important Row, Temple; George French, Barrister-at- sphere of duty; and while lively action in Law, 7, Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn; it secures public favour (a consideration of no Thomas Spinks, Doctor of Civil Law, College, minor importance), its indirect benefits to the Doctors' Commons. Profession are, in general, hardly established at their full value.

Law and Equity Reports Society (Limited). Reporting and publishing cases decided in the Courts of Law. Promoter, Edward Bourne Lovell, Barrister-at-Law, 8, New Square, Lincoln's Inn.

London Joint-Stock Book Establishment Company (Limited). Publishing and selling books. Promoters, Charles Thomas Masterman, Gas Engineer, Soho Works, Birmingham; James Bohn, Bookseller, 5, Lyndhurst Grove, Camberwell.

Liverpool Printing and Publishing Company (Limited). Printing and publishing a daily newspaper in Liverpool.

National Newspaper League Company (Limited). Printing a newspaper. Promoter, William Cribb, Gentleman, 18, Stockwell Park Road, Brixton.

General Apothecaries Company (Limited). Supplying the medical profession and the public with unadulterated drugs and chemicals, invalids' food, &c., and preparing physicians' prescriptions.

Ladies' Guild Company (Limited). Manufacturing decorated glass. Promoters, Edward Vansittart Neale, Esq., West Wickham, Kent; Frederick William Bramston, Esq., Oak Tree House, Clapham, Surrey.

The extent of useful operation, however, is unfortunately in many directions very much limited through the nature of the defects being such as to involve considerable difference of opinion among the Profession as to the appropriate remedies, and such questions, for the present at least, it is advisable to pass over. Still the points on which there can hardly be any very material difference of opinion are neither few nor unimportant.

The importance of wise and earnest action of this kind is the more pressing from the risk run in its neglect. Where great defects exist, public opinion will soon compel some alteration, and left to less competent hands, empiric measures will be past, injurious alike to the Profession and the Public. A striking instance of this danger was the outrageous Bill of Exchange Bill of last year, and which was with so much difficulty defeated. Yet the Law of England on this subject had long been far behind the age, and was excelled alike by that of Scotland and of most continental countries; and if the previous attempts at its reform, which had been repeatedly made by Lord Campbell, had only been properly assisted by the Profession, not small would have been the gain to us alike in credit and profit.

Among the numerous subjects of this nature, to which the Society's attention may be usefully directed, may be mentioned the following. The selection is purposely miscellaneous :—

1. The opening the Insolvent Courts to attorneys. The fullest evidence could easily be

388

Suggestions for Amending the Law.-Curiosities of Legislation.

adduced to show the great extent to which rogues are allowed to pass unpunished, because creditors, though willing to employ an attorney, hesitate to go to the far greater expense of employing a barrister, especially with so inferior a bar as is inevitably that of these Courts.

2. The improvement of the indexes of the Insolvent Courts, making one general index.

3. The reduction of the duty on many deeds now liable to 35s., because not otherwise specified, though many of them relate to very trifling property, and might be easily classed and assessed; as for instance, deeds of license for use of light, &c., often merely for protection at small or nominal rents: releases and - surrenders of small interests. Upon the latter the duty might be the same as that of the principal deed.

4. Upon interpleader summons the Judge should have absolute power to adjudicate without consent, so that a party dissatisfied should not have precluded himself from appealing to

the full Court.

CURIOSITIES OF LEGISLATION.1

BREVITY OF ANCIENT SCOTCH LAWs.

AFTER alluding to the manner in which the true state of a country was delineated in its legislative enactments, which were passed to meet present exigencies and repress existing evils, and were free from partisanship, the lecturer alluded to the extreme brevity of ancient Scotch Laws. Judging from our Statutebook, he said, our ancestors must have been men of few words-men fond of deeds rather than words. It was refreshing, after reading some of our complex and lengthened modern Acts of Parliament to turn to a Scotch Act of Parliament of the reign of James the First, which briefly and pithily enacts that "nae man should enter any place where there is hay with a candle, unless it be in a lantern." The whole of the Scotch Acts of Parliament passed in the reign of James the First, extending over 13 Parliaments, and amounting to 133 in number, were comprehended in 46 pages of a small duodecimo volume, and that volume from 1426 to 1621, being nearly 200 years. contained the whole Scotch Acts of Parliament The annual Mutiny Act of Queen Victoria, for the regulation of the army, was many times more bulky than the Acts of the whole 13 Parliaments of her first royal ancestor in the

Stuart line.

LESSONS OF ANCIENT SCOTCH LAWS.

5. The County Courts admit of very extensive improvements, though great difference of opinion, at least out of the Profession, must be expected as to the mode. There can be no doubt, for instance, that a great deal of time and great expense would be saved alike to the Court and the suitors, were the officers required to effect service a week before the day of hearing, and the defendants were required to enter an appearance, or suffer judgment by Sheriff Barclay said that in these old Scotch default. The fee for appearance need not ex-laws we could see the strong, stubborn characceed a penny in the pound. The fee should ter of the Ancient Scot-stern in his patriotism, not be a prerequisite to appearing and alleging and ambitious to uphold his country against reasons for delay in payment; it should be her more powerful neighbour, with which she taken as a denial of the claim; and in the is now happily united in indissoluble alliance. event of the appearance being entered, and The early attention given to the education of no grounds of defence shown, judgment for the young, by the institution of schools in immediate payment should be a matter of

course.

every village, contrasted favourably with the little attention paid to the subject in other 6. Another alteration of great value would be countries, and even in modern times in our the permission to attorneys to execute the writs, own country. There was much to be learned and without payment of the fees. The present by an attentive study of the ancient laws of rule is perfectly monstrous, that leave should Scotland-much to teach us how little value be given to suitors to employ their own attorneys only on special application, and proof of the inability of the Court officers to perform their duty, the further fee being still paid all the same, and the previous fee actually charged personally upon the plaintiff.

there is in primitive law to mould the minds of a people without the help of a sound moral and religious education, but much to make us proud of our ancestors, ever jealous of their rights-men attached to their rugged country, anxious to maintain its ancient independence, and secure its place and name among the barbarism or rudeness of manner, but let us nations. Let us not sneer at their seeming pay them a tribute of reverence and respect for what they did in rearing our national greatpe-ness, and securing our national civil and religious liberties.

7. In cases of a counter claim, the defendant entering his plaint within a reasonable time, should be entitled, as a matter of course, to have both heard simultaneously.

8. In bankruptcy proofs under London titions should be freely received when sworn before the London Commissioners in Chancery.

Many similar instances might be adduced, and have doubtless suggested themselves to other members.

THE GREAT ERROR OF MODERN LEGISLA-
TION.

Before proceeding to the proper subject of

From Sheriff Barclay's Lecture at the Dundee Institution.

his lecture, Sheriff Barclay gave some amusing times deceptive. There was one which iminstances of the absurdities of modern legisla- posed a tax on coals carried to London, which tion. The great error, he said, in the legisla- he thought was abolished ten years ago. That tion of the present day was this, that the Acts Act was smuggled through Parliament under of Parliament were not carried through by any the title of "A Tax for the Support of the one man, but were the product of a great num- Orphans of London;" whereas, it was a tax ber of minds. They pass through several com- on coals brought into London, and only a part mittees of the two Houses of Parliament. of the proceeds went to the support of an Every one has his peculiar feeling and peculiar orphan institution. provision; every one wishes to introduce some amendment, provision, or restriction; and consequently the law, as it comes out in the end, is a piece of patch-work or mosaic something like what old ladies made in the shape of bed

covers.

HAMLET WITH THE PRINCIPAL CHARACTER

OMITTED.

ACT AGAINST THE IMPORTATION OF
IRISHMEN.

There was an amusing Act of Parliament passed in 1425, which was entitled, "Scotchmen should bring nae man furth of Ireland without ane testimonial." ed in the Act that this was not done "to It was explainbreak the auld friendship between the people He proceeded to notice a few amusing illus- of Scotland and the Irishry of Ireland." In trations of the absurdity of the mode of legisla- connection with this Act there was a good tion to which he had referred. The first which story told of a scene between Lord Meadowbe quoted was an Act passed in the reign of bank, now Mr. Machonochie, and Daniel George III., to regulate the trade in the madda O'Connell, which occurred in the course of a root, an important article of commerce. In that debate in the House of Commons. Daniel Act there were 60 sections, and it was found O'Connell had made a very violent attack to be totally inoperative, for the best of all upon the Scotch statute-book, and mainreasons, that the word "madda" or "madda tained that the whole of the old Scotch root" did no occur from the beginning to the Acts of Parliament were relics of a barbarous end of the whole Act. It contained many re- age, not founded upon right reason or sound strictions and tests of the purity of the article policy; upon which Mr. Maconochie rose up for the purposes of excise and customs, but the and begged to dispute the accuracy of Mr. article to be tested was not once mentioned in O'Connell's statement, for, so far back as the Act a beautiful legal illustration of enact-1425, there was an Act passed in Scotland ing "Hamlet" without the character of Ham- against the importation of the Irish.

let.

A LEGAL DILEMMA.

Again, in an Act passed so late as the reign of George IV., for building a new prison in Gloucester, one section sets forth that the prisoners are to be kept in the old prison till the new prison is built, and another section of the same Act, from principles of economy, declares that the materials in the old prison are to be used in building the new.

A NEW WAY TO PUNISH THEFT.

COMPLEXITY OF MODERN ACTS OF PAR

LIAMENT.

He would next adduce as an amusing illustration of the complexity of modern Acts of Parliament, an Act regulating transactions between masters and servants, one which was in everyday use, and which was at present frequently put in force in Dundee. He would only read one clause, which he thought might be set to music, from the exceeding nicety and balance of some of the terms. He proceeded to read the clause which was of great length,

and which drew from the audience continued

A still better illustration, perhaps, was furnished by an Act passed in the reign of George II., relating to the offence of stealing from peals of laughter, from the interminable legal bleach-fields, which declares that the punish- words, "every servant in husbandry, artificer, phraseology and the frequent repetition of the ment of the offender shall be ten years' trans-miner, collier, pitman, labourer, or other perportation, one-half to the prosecutor and the other half to the king. The obvious blunder here was that the Act, as originally drawn out, made the offender liable to a penalty of 1001. one-half to the prosecutor and the other half to the king; but some wise head, thinking this punishment was not sufficiently severe, took away the pecuniary penalty, and substituted transportation, forgetting to look to the remaining portion of the clause, and the Act therefore ordered that the prosecutor should be transported five years and the king five years.

son." Referring to the laughter which the reading of the clause elicited, the Sheriff gravely assured his audience that it "was really no joke" to one who, like himself, was being read once or twice a-week. It was as compelled to listen to such a clause as that bad as swallowing a dose of ipecacuanah. It put him in mind of the third chapter of Daniel, where it was recorded that Nebuchadnezzar had set up an image, and a law commanding the worship of the image is frequently quoted, in which there constantly occurred the words, "the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music." The titles of Acts of Parliament were some-This law of master and servant, which he had

SOMETHING IN A NAME.