290 Business of the House of Commons.- Chancery Reform.-Property Lawyer. There are also many members of the pro- the private businesss of Parliament. The fession who, although they may be unqua- committee consists of Mr. Freshfield, Mr. lified for the more brilliant walks of the Hayter, Sir Edward Sugden, Dr. Nicholl, profession, yet might be here advanta- Sir Charles Grey, Mr. Darby, Mr. Blake, geously occupied. We venture to throw Mr. James Stewart, and Mr. Serjeant Curry. out this suggestion, with a sincere belief Five to be a quorum. that the learned persons who act as benchers are really desirous of benefitting the profession of which they are the ornaments. THE BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE CHANCERY REFORM. THE state of the Courts of Chancery continues to attract much public attention. Returns have been moved for respecting the Six Clerks' and Master's Offices, which, THE business of the House of Commons, if made, will prove the truth of the statewhich peculiarly concerns our readers, is ments which have appeared from time to not so much that which is transacted in the time in these pages. Sir Edward Sugden House, as that which is done in the parts gave notice that he would, on an early day, adjacent-the committee rooms. Two im-call the attention of the House to the state portant changes have taken place as to this of the Court of Chancery; but on the next in the present session. In the first place day Lord John Russell, in answer to a the act of last session for the Trial of Con-question respecting the Judicial Committee troverted Elections (2 & 3 Vict. c. 38; see of the Privy Council, said that the Lord ante, p. 34,) having come into operation, Chancellor would shortly introduce into the names of all the members of the House the House of Lords a bill for the improvewere called over, and the following excuses ment not only of the Judicial Committee, from serving having been made at the time, but of the Courts of Equity. We rejoice were allowed:-Certain members on ac- to hear this, although it is only what we count of their being upwards of sixty years have led our readers to expect. We of age; certain members from absence and believe that we can state from good authoill health. The Attorney General until rity, that the Lord Chancellor's scheme Easter, "from the peculiar circumstances will embrace the abolition of the Equity of the business of his office." Lord John Exchequer, the appointment of two new Russell, Colonial Secretary, the Chancellor Equity Judges, the remodelling the ap of the Exchequer, and Lord Palmerston, pellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords, Foreign Secretary, from their official emas well as a very considerable reform both in ployments. Certain other members, as the Masters' and Six Clerks' Offices. being petitioned against; and lastly, cer- await the new bill with much expectation; tain other members, as not having been and we apprehend that until it is introduced returned fourteen days, and liable therefore no other step will be taken in this matter. to be petitioned against. These were the only excuses either attempted to be made, or allowed by the House. On the 7th of February the General Committee of Elections was sworn. They are Mr. Greene, Mr. Wm. Miles, the O'Connor Don, Mr. Ord, Mr. Strutt, and Mr. John Young. a The other alteration is as follows:-On the 11th of February, in pursuance of the recommendation of the Report of the Select Committee on Private Business of last session, a Select Committee was appointed, to which all Divorce Bills should be referred. This was partially tried in the last session, but the present committee consists wholly of lawyers, and their appointment is an important; tep, as we think, towards affording a better tribunal for disposing of a See 18 L. O. 331, 402. THE PROPERTY LAWYER. DISTRESS FOR RENT-CHARGE. We THERE are at common law three manner of The Property Lawyer. -New Bills in Parliament. 291 opinion is now overruled. In Bac. Abr. "Rent | without the consent or attornment of the M." it is laid down that if A. possessed of a party, because his consent is not necessary term for twenty years, leases it for ten years, for the perfection of these conveyances. It reserving 301. rent, and afterwards devises is true that the divided portions of the rent201. of the rent to each of his three sons, charge had reunited in one person, in whose equally to be divided, this is a good devise, right the action was brought, but the case and each of his sons shall have an action of was not settled on that ground, but on the debt for his third part, though the reversion general proposition laid down by the Court, remains entire, for there is nothing in the that the rent might be divided. We think, nature of the thing to hinder such a divi- therefore, on the authority of these decision or apportionment; and in Colborne v. sions, that the rent was legally divided in Wright, 2 Lev. 239, it was held that by this case by will, and by deed oparating conveyance of devise or fine to uses, a rent- under the Statute of Uses; and as attorncharge may be divided without the assent or ment, since the statute of 4 Anne, c. 16, is attornment of the tenant, and so as to make no longer necessary to the perfection of any him liable to several distresses, because his grant, we should probably hold that the assent or attornment is not necessary to the form of the conveyance would not make perfection of those conveyances; and this any difference. And this view of the case case has been followed in a recent case, in agrees with what may be inferred from which Lord Abinger, C. B., among other Bacon's Abridgment, Rent, M. to have points, adverted to this, and thus clearly been the opinion of Chief Baron Gilbert on expressed the opinion of the Court: this point.' Rivis v. Watson, 5 Mee. & W. 255. : "The principal point in the case was, whether one tenant in common of a rentcharge could distrain for his undivided share, it being contended that, upon these pleadings it must be taken that the rent in ques'tion was a rent-charge, at least not a rentservice, which, it is admitted, might be divided, so as to leave a power of distress incident to each portion. And we think that the assumption was proper; but on a review of the authorities, which were very ably discussed at the bar, we are of opinion that a rent-charge may be divided by the act of the party, and that the assignee of each portion may distrain for it. That it was severable by act of law, was admitted to be clear; and also it was agreed that it could be divided with the attornment or express consent of the person chargeable with it; but it was contended, that without such attornment or consent it could not be done, on the ground that the party would be made liable to several distresses for the It has, however, been decided by a majority of judges, with reference to a rent service disconnected from the reversion, that it might be divided by will, in the case of Ards v. Watkins, Cro. Eliz. 637, 651; though the same objection was stated, but it was answered, that it was the tenant's own fault, and if he paid the rent, he would avoid it; and it was also said that the devise would enure without attornment; and a similar point was decided by the whole Court in Colborne v. Wright, 2 Lev. 239, with respect to a rent-charge; and it was held that by the conveyance of devise, and fine to uses, the rent might be divided same rent. NEW BILLS IN PARLIAMENT. AMENDMENT OF TITHES COMMUTATION ACT. This is a bill further to explain and amend the acts for the Commutation of Tithes in England and Wales. It recites that by the 6 & 7 W. 4, c. 71, s. 67, it is enacted, that from the first day of January next following the confirmation of any apportionment in any parish under the said act, the lands of such parish shall be absolutely discharged from tithes, except as in the said act is provided in certain cases, and instead thereof there shall be payable to the person entitled to such tithes, and in that behalf mentioned in the said apportionment, a sum of money in the nature of a rent-charge issuing out of the lands charged therewith; and that by 1 Vict. c. 69. s. 11, provision is made for the lands in a parish being discharged from tithes, (except as in the said first recited act is excepted) by agreement between the parties to any parochial agreement or supplemental agreement, from certain days preceding or following the consaid first day of January next following such firmation of the apportionment, instead of the confirmation; but so that the first payment of the rent-charge be made and recoverable at the expiration of six calendar months from the time from which such lands are discharged from the payment of tithes; and by an act passed in the last session of parliament, 2 & 3 Vict. c. 62, s. 10, the commissioners appointed under the said first recited act are enabled by their award, and the land-owners and tithe owners by supplemental agreement, in like manner to fix the period at which any rentcharge shall commence. And that after an agreement for, or award of, rent-charge has been made and confirmed by the said commissioners, much delay is often occasioned in settling and adjusting the apportionment before the same can be confirmed by the commissioners, and by reason of the lands remaining subject to tithes or composition for tithes in the meanwhile, such tithes in many cases continue to be taken in kind, or may be so taken on the determination of any composition existing at the date of such agreement or award, notwithstanding that the parties have agreed for, or the commissioners awarded, the sum which, under the provisions of the said acts, ought to be taken as the permanent rent-charge payable instead of such tithes; and great hardship is thereby occasioned, contrary to the spirit and intent of the said acts. The proposed enactments are: 1. That in every case where an annual sum by way of rent-charge shall have been fixed in any parish, instead of the tithes of such parish, either by agreement or award, it shall be lawful for the said commissioners, by a declaration in writing under their hands and seal of office, or the hands of any two of them, at any period after the confirmation of any such agreement or award respectively, and before the confirmation of the apportionment to be made in respect of the rent charge so fixed, upon the application in writing of any land-owner, and upon his giving such security to the said commissioners as they shall in their discretion think sufficient for the due payment to the parties entitled thereto of such rent-charge from the period to be fixed in such declaration, to declare that the lands in such parish shall be discharged from the payment or render of tithes, or composition or rent instead of tithes, from such day as the said commissioners shall fix in such declaration in that respect; and that, instead thereof, the annnal payment or rent-charge so fixed by any such award or agreement respectively, shall be paid to the person entitled to the same by half yearly payments, commencing and calculating from such period of discharge from tithes named in such declaration as aforesaid. production of such security, and on proof by affidavit of the amount so due as aforesaid, and of the service of such summons on such landowner or on any occupier of any of the lands of such land-owner, in any such parish, by leaving the saine at his place of abode, to order judgment to be signed at the suit of the said commissioners, and execution to issue in due course against such land-owner accordingly, or his goods, chattels and estates, for the amount so due, and the costs of such application, judgment and execution, as in the case of an ordinary judgment in an action of debt; and such security shall be available against such land-owner giving the same up to and including the half yearly payment accruing due next before the confirmation of such appor tionment, and shall be in full force notwithstanding any change in the party entitled to such rent charge. 3. That in every such case the said commissioners shall make due inquiry as to any payment of rent-charge made by any such land-owner, in respect of such security, previous to the confirmation of such apportionment of such rent-charge, and shall indorse on such apportionment a certificate of every such payment; and such land-owner shall thereupon, after a confirmation of such apportionment, be entitled to recover the amount specified in such certificate against the lands of the said parish subject to such rent-charge, in the proportions fixed by such apportionment, by distress and entry on such lands respectively, and shall have the like remedies or modes of recovery as are given to the owners of rent charge for recovery thereof in the said recited acts, or any of them. 4. If security insufficient, arrears may be recovered as if accruing after the apportionment. 5. Security to be free of stamp duty. 6. Extension of power to fix sum to be paid after determination of composition, and period for commencement of rent-charge. 2 & 3 Vict. c. 62, s. 10. 7. Extension of powers to substitute fixed rent-charge instead of contingent rent-charge, 2 & 3 Vict. c. 62, s. 11. 8. Extension of powers in respect of lammas and common lands, 2 & 3 Vict. c. 62, s 13. 2. That in every such case, if the land owner giving security shall not make due payment to the person entitled to the same according to 9. That so much of the said lastly-recited the tenor of such security, it shall be lawful act as relates to the vesting of an estate of for the said cominissioners from time to time, inheritance as to any lands in any ecclesiastical as and when any half-yearly payment of such tithe-owner and his successors, notwithstanding rent-charge shall accrue, and the same or any the same be made by any corporation sole or part thereof shall remain unpaid for the space aggregate, or any trustees or feoffees for of twenty-one days from any day fixed for pay-charitable purposes, otherwise restrained from ment thereof, and notwithstanding judgment shall have been previously issued in respect of any former arrears, to sue for and recover any such half-yearly payment, or so much thereof as shall from time to time remain unpaid in respect thereof, against the land owner giving such security, by taking out a summons, returnable before a judge at chambers, to compute what is due in respect of such rent-charge; and it shall be lawful for any judge before whom such summons shall be returnable, on or incapable of making any such valid conveyance or assurance, extends to trustees or feoffees of parish property, or of property held by or vested in such trustees or feoffees for parochial or other uses or purposes or nature of a parochial or public trust. the 10. That in any case where the parties a parochial agreement, or the commissioners in the case of an award, shall have proceeded, according to the provisions of the said recited acts, to ascertain and fix a rent-charge in any Notices of New Books: Macallan's Pocket Lawyer. 293 substance of his materials, we select the subject of Law Agents, of whose employment he thus treats: "The employment of a law agent may be verbal. Putting into his hands the service copy of a summons is employment to defend; but he has no recourse on a nominal defender when he receives the service copy and takes his instructions from the party interested. parish wherein any of the lands shall at the time of making such agreement or award be cultivated as hop grounds or market gardens, and in case of proceeding by award when notice shall have been given that the tithes of any of the lands so cultivated should be separately valued, it shall be lawful for the said parties to declare in such agreement, or for the said commissioners to declare in such award, the amount of extraordinary charge per acre to be in future payable in respect of hop grounds and market gardens or any district therein respectively in such parish; and the rentcharge mentioned in every such agreement or award respectively shall, subject to the addition of such acreable extraordinary charge, consist of the amount agreed for or awarded in respect of the tithes in such parish, other than the tithes of the lands cultivated therein as hop grounds and market gardens respectively, and the ordinary charge in respect of the lands "But employment to conduct a suit before so cultivated as hop grounds and market gar-cation to the Court of Session. an inferior Court does not authorise an advodens respectively added thereto. 11. Extraordinary rent charge need not be distinguished on separate lands in apportion The Pocket Lawyer: a Practical Digest of the Law of Scotland, Mercantile Law of Great Britain, and Forms regulating the Law of Scotland. By Alexander Macallan, Esq., Advocate. Cannon, Edinburgh; Butterworth, London. We noticed some years ago an early edition of this work. The author's plan, since that time, has been considerably improved. It originally comprised a selection of those branches of law only which are of more prominent interest than others; but it is now much extended, and contains a tolerably complete Digest of the Law of Scotland, with the Forms applicable to such Law, and a Digest of the Mercantile Law of Great Britain. The latter portion of the work will, no doubt, be useful in Scotland: here are already in possession of very able Digests. Many parts of the Law of Scotland ought to be known to the English practitioner, and the present volume in a concise form supplies the information required. As an example of the ability with which Mr. Macallan has condensed the "And employment is inferred when a party signs a pleading. "Also when the client knows of a suit and does not disclaim it. 66 And putting into the hands of a law agent a bill is employment to recover payment. "And employment to recover a debt includes all measures within the exercise of a sound discretion. "And, excepting against her husband, a married woman cannot authorize a suit. "And an authority to conduct a suit is no authority to compromise it, the compromise binding the agent only. "And a party is not liable for the expense of measures not authorized, though the obligation of another party for whom he was cautioner should be thereby discharged. "But a party has been held bound by an amicable judgment consented to by his counsel in Court. "And a law agent is liable for the charges of another law agent whom he employs in the affairs of his client. "But not in so far as the agent employed may take his instructions from the client. And local practice may relieve a law agent from the charges of another law agent so employed." Of their "Accounts" or Bills of Costs, (as they are called on this side the Tweed) he says,― a "The account of a law agent for conducting suit is not due till taxed by the auditor of Court. 66 And honouring a draft for the amount does not exclude taxation. "Nor a writing by the client holding the accounts to be correct. "And an agent who acts without a license has no claim either for remuneration or outlays. "But the objection is excluded when a decree in foro is obtained before it is made. "And where expenses had been found due to a pursuer, decree for the amount as taxed was allowed, though it was objected that his agent had acted, during the currency of the account, without a licence.. "And when expenses are found due in a cause, the agent is entitled to judgment in his own name. "And though judgment in his own name should not be obtained, intimation to the party 294 Notices of New Books.-Power of Appointment in Purchase Deeds. liable will prevent compensation between the parties. "And after a favourable judgment, or a judgment indicating success, the agent on that side is entitled to prosecute the cause to a conclusion, to recover his expenses, though the cause should be compromised by the parties. "But expenses found due to one party may be compensated with expenses found due to the other. "And the agent has no preference over the money found due to his client in his own right, and an assignation will not prevent compensation on a counter-claim. "And an arrestment is preferable to the claim of a law agent over the expenses found due to his client. "A law agent has also a lien or right of retention, in security of his account, over the papers of his client in his possession. And his lien is preferable to an heritable security, though completed by infeftment before he obtained possession of the papers. "And he is not bound to exhibit the papers at the suit of his client, though only to prove a fact. "And the lien is not lost by producing the papers in a process. "Nor by sending them to another agent in the business of his client. "But he is bound to exhibit the papers at the suit of a third party, when the exhibition is not to benefit his client. "And he has no lien over papers in a process not previously in his hands. "Nor over papers not put into his hands professionally. "Nor over titles only put into his hands to say whether he will accept them as a security for a separate debt. "Nor over papers belonging to third parties, put into his hands by his clients. "Nor over papers put into his hands by his client, after the client is bankrupt. "And he has no lien for cash advances, but only for his business accounts. Or accounts contracted by him to other agents in the business of his client. 66 When his claim is constituted, he is not bound to exhibit or deliver the papers till he be paid. "But when not constituted he is bound to deliver them on security for payment when constituted." Regarding their professional responsibikty, Mr. Macallan thus describes the state of the Law: "A law agent who neglects the business entrusted to him is liable for the loss sustained by his client. "So, when he neglects to negociate a bill, he is liable for the debt. "Also when he loses a bill. "Also when he loses a process containing a judgment in foro. "Also when he neglects to aliment a debtor in prison, and the debtor in consequence gets free. "Also when he neglects to intimate an assignation. "Also when he neglects duly to inquire into the solvency of a cautioner in a suspension. "Also when he lends the money of his client on insufficient security without searching the records. Also when he is aware that the security on which he lends the money of his client is imperfect. "And where the agent of the borrower of money knew that the security given for the money was inadequate, he was held liable to the lender. "And an agent was held liable for money lent on a security which he had completed in a form not established in practice, and which was postponed in a competition. "And where a purchaser resiled from an improbative missive of sale, the agent entrusted with the preparation of the missive was held liable in damages to the seller. "And an agent who, after being employed to get security for a debt, obtained from the debtor a good security for a debt due to himself, and an imperfect security for the debt due to his employer, was held liable in the debt due to his employer. "And an agent who was instructed to do diligence, to put his client on an equality with other creditors, and who stopped in the course of his measures, without informing his client, was held liable in the sum which the measures would have secured. "And an agent was held liable in damages who neglected to extend a writing on stamped paper. 66 And an agent is not relieved of responsibility though he act gratuitously. "And it is no answer to a neglect of duty that funds were not supplied, if the client was not informed that funds were wanted." Each of these doctrines or points of law is accompanied by a reference to the case in which it has been propounded or recognised, but we omit them as unnecessary to the English reader. POWER OF APPOINTMENT IN To the Editor of the Legal Observer, I WILL give your correspondent "A Country He objects to the introduction of the ap |
