the course of the proof led in the Sheriff Court, the defender made an admission to the effect that the child, in respect of its health, had all along been "a proper object of parochial relief." The Second Division of the Court, reversing the decisions of both the Sheriffs, and also of the Lord Ordinary, held the defender liable to support the child since the date of the notice. The grounds of the decision mainly rested on the above admission. The judges thought that its terms plainly imported that, at the date of her first receiving relief, the child was a pauper in her own right. At that date, her settlement acquired through her father, but possessed by her in her own right, was in the parish of her father's settlement, and having once become a pauper, she could not lose this settlement unless and until she became rehabilitated. This is, we believe, the first time that there has been a decision of the Supreme Court to the effect that an unemancipated pupil child, whose father is alive and able-bodied, can retain a separate and independent settlement from that of the head of the family. Assuming the interpretation of the defender's admission to be correct, and the law as applicable thereto to be, sound, it is certainly unfortunate that so important an opinion should have been enunciated in a case where the decision rested on such narrow grounds; and that, though three consecutive judgments were reversed, it was held only by a majority of the Court. It is quite plain that the meaning attached by the Court to the admission was not that intended to be conveyed, or which, in point of fact, was conveyed either to the parties themselves, or to any of the inferior judges. The defender maintained it meant no more than that— putting out of sight the fact that the child had an able-bodied father-she was a fit object for relief. Indeed, if we read the admission in connection with the pleas, which are to a great extent rested on the fact that the father being able-bodied, his children could not be entitled to relief, it is impossible to suppose that the party intended to admit more, unless we assume that he wished deliberately to stultify himself. If this be so, that construction, which was most in accordance with the contentions of parties-assuming, of course, the construction to be a reasonable one-ought surely to have been given effect to. However that may be, and whether the Court, in construing the admission, paid too much regard to the mere words and grammatical construction, and too little to the intention with which it was framed, and to the accompanying circumstances, or whether the admission was so

broad as to leave them no alternative, in their view of the law applicable, we cannot but regret that the decision proceeded, not on the merits of the case, but on the conduct of those who managed it—a result always to be deplored, but more especially in a case of such delicacy and importance.

As to the abstract principle of law as here laid down, we have just one word to say. It appears to be a departure from, or at least an exception to, the doctrine which was so broadly laid down by the House of Lords in the case of Adamson v. Barbour, 1853, 1 Macq. 376, that the settlement of pupil children is inseparable from the then existing settlement of their father, however acquired, and wherever situated. According to this view, the right to receive relief operates practically as forisfamiliation. The burden of supporting one of the family is separated, and laid on other shoulders than those bound to support the rest. The pupil is apparently no longer the child of her father. We express no opinion as to the soundness of the decision. Very good law may often lead to very curious results which were never contemplated, but we think we have materials to justify the expression which, at the commencement of this notice, we applied to the decision. Curiously enough, in the case of Hay v. Paterson, Jan. 29, 1857, 19 D. 332, we find practically the same circumstances. which have here occurred alluded to as possible. In that case the Court, following out the principle on which Adamson v. Barbour proceeded, held that the burden of supporting a lunatic pauper pupil whose father was alive, but had no settlement except that of his birth, fell, not on the parish of the pupil's birth, but on that of the father's. The Lord President said-" Whether at any after period, by the father's acquiring a residential settlement, or by the lunatic attaining majority or otherwise, any change may be introduced into the position of parties, I do not speculate upon it." The point, therefore, was not so very clear in 1857 as it has become in 1866.

New Hooks.

A Treatise on the Law of Scotland, relative to Parent and

Child, and Guardian and Ward, by PATRICK FRASER,
Advocate. Second edition by HUGH COWAN, Advocate.
T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh; Stevens & Son, London; J.
Smith & Son, Glasgow.

THIS work requires no introduction to the public. It is an ex-
pansion of one branch of Mr Fraser's great work on Personal and
Domestic Relations, which has been out of print for the last
dozen of years.
It does not often happen to any one to write a
book which at once takes its place as an institutional work, still
less is this to be expected from a man who has just been called to
the Bar, which was Mr Fraser's position when he first gave his
work to the public. It was high time that a new edition should be
published, and we are glad to see that, though, as might be ex-
pected, he delegates part of the labour of editing to friends, his
own hand is visible throughout in the alterations made. There
is the old unwearied industry in collecting from all quarters, and
bringing into one focus, every ray of light which can help to
illumine the darkness of obscure branches of the law-and the
same strong handling and bold criticism of modern authorities.

66

During the twenty years that have elapsed since the first edition, many of our most important consistorial decisions have been pronounced, and in almost the whole of them Mr Fraser has been counsel on one side or other. Hence the book has a peculiar value and interest, because the author so often treats of matters quorum pars magna fuit." Among the recent cases commented on is that of Fenton and Livingstone, in which the First Division judges, or some of them, seem to have thought that they could acknowledge the legitimacy of the issue of an incestuous marriage, without recognizing the validity of the marriage itself. "It would certainly," says Mr Fraser, "be a curious law which would hang the parents, if they came to Scotland, for incest, and, at the same time, recognize the legitimacy of the issue of these very persons." The view of the House of Lords was that, if the law of Scotland must refuse to acknowledge the validity of the marriage on the ground

of its being abhorrent to public policy, vile and abominable, and contrary to the Word of God, it must, in like manner, refuse all recognition of the immediate incidents of such a connection.

Every judgment within the last twenty years that touches on the subject embraced in this volume, will be found discussed with that absolute freedom which does not insist upon implicit acceptance of the views of the writer, but sets the reader a thinking for himself. Had the results of recent decisions merely been stated with all the conciseness and brevity possible, trouble might have been saved to the reader; but he would not have risen from the perusal of each chapter as he must now do a better informed, and a more thinking lawyer. It is a great boon to the public to get such a work so edited. Besides the noting and discussing of all the recent decisions, the changes introduced by the Pupil's Protection Act, and the recent Lunacy Legislation, are both gone into at length. But there is no standing still in law. We have already a new Lunacy Act, but one that does little more (besides the special protection it gives to medical men) than continue and consolidate some of the previous statutes, and Mr Fraser's work, in which he gives his opinion against the liability of sonsin-law for the support of their fathers-in-law, was hardly published when the contrary was laid down by an unanimous judgment of the Second Division in Reid v. Moir; but, as this decision has been carried to appeal, we should not wonder if Mr Fraser's text continued to stand good. He quotes the case of Macdonald, and proceeds :

'Lord Mackenzie observed :- "As to finding the daughters liable because they have husbands-viewing the husbands as a kind of estate-it is a thing I do not like to set the example of;" and to a similar effect the other judges. There is thus no authoritative decision fixing the point. But the obiter dicta of the Supreme Court in the most recent case are decidedly against the claim. To this it may be added, that, in a case which came before Lord Ormidale when he was Sheriff of Renfrew, he was of opinion that no such liability existed, and rejected the claim. The principle upon which it is thought that a son-in-law is not liable is, that while a husband is liable for the debts of his wife arising ex contractu before the marriage, and also for those which she contracts as præposita in household affairs after marriage, he is not liable for any claim arising ex jure naturae. The claim of a mother or father against a child is of this latter class; and it is thought that, unless the parent has before the marriage become dependent on, or is supported by the daughter, no claim in law exists against the husband on account of the supervening poverty of the parent.'

Apart from the additional authority and great value of the

work in its new form, embodying the experience of a life of the greatest professional activity, this book is really remarkably interesting for a law-book, containing, as it does, so much cruelty and adultery. There are plots for fifty operas, and a hundred and fifty novels.

The picture of Scotch manners is truly appalling. Just take the cases of Margaret, Dowager Queen of James the Fourth, who, after his death, married the Earl of Angus, which marriage was declared illegal on account of the Earl's pre-contract with another lady; or the case of the Earl of Rothes, who, after thirteen years of married life, had his marriage set aside as within what the Romish Church called forbidden degrees, and without papal dispensation. But, in both cases, the legitimacy of the issue was sustained. Perhaps the case of Rutherford of Edgerton may be more picturesque, where Catherine Rutherford, in accordance with the feudal rule, forfeited her inheritance by "away ganging with James the Stuart of Traquair, committing her person to him in fornication, they being within the forbidden degrees." Thereafter they obtained a dispensation and married, and their issue ultimately recovered the inheritance, which had passed to Catherine's sister, who, though thrice married, had no issue.

*

A Manual of Conveyancing, in the Form of Examinations, embracing both Personal and Heritable Rights. By the late Second Edition. Revised by JOHN For the Use of Students. Edinburgh:

JOHN HENDRY, W.S.
T. MOWBRAY, W.S.
Bell & Bradfute.

MR HENDRY'S Manual has acquired a certain reputation as a book for students, and even as a book of reference in ordinary matters of business when a higher authority is not at hand. But it is not, and it does not pretend to be, more than a rifacimento of the lectures delivered by the late Professor Montgomerie Bell in the early years of his occupancy of the Conveyancing Chair. Any work by a diligent student founded on Mr Bell's lectureswhich we observe are to be communicated to the world within a few days in a fuller and more authentic form-could not fail to have some value; and, accordingly, Mr Hendry's work is at least

66

"The infliction, I suspect," says Mr Riddell, in his 'Peerage and Consistorial Law,' was more owing to its being identified with the feudal privileges and profits of the superior, who was entitled to present a husband to his ward, under a lucrative penalty if she refused, than to any high reverence for female virtue."