Carnarvon-The Queen v. Stephen Jones Durham-The Queen v. Inhabitants of Middleton Bridgwater-The Queen v. Matthew Paramore Nottinghamshire-The Queen v. George Kelk Wetherell v. Bellwood Original and revived cause. Do. Wetherell v. Weighill Cosier v. Rosser March v. March Mayor of London v. Combe Costeber v. Horrox, abated Brayley v. Bywater Connell v. Hall Craik v. Lamb Berkshire-The Queen v. Trustees of Hurley Roads Northumberland-The Queen v. The Inhabitants Nottinghamshire-The Queen v. William Robinson Middlesex-The Queen v. The Inhabitants of Kensington Cheshire-The Queen v. The Inhabitants of Hurds- Derby-The Queen v. The Inhabitants of the EXCHEQUER SITTINGS IN EQUITY. Lord Abinger. Wednesday Apr. 15 16 Petitions and Motions. Tuesday 28 Petitions and Motions. Mr. Baron Alderson. Short Petitions, Motions, Thursday 30 and any business which will not occupy much time. Lord Abinger. { { Pleas, Demurrers, Exceptions, and Further Directions. Causes. Petitions and Motions. Pleas, Demurrers, Exceptions, and Further Directions. 11 Petitions and Motions. 1 Saturday 2 Tuesday 5 Saturday 9 Monday 496 Court of Queen's Bench.-List of Law Bills in Parliament.-Editor's Letter Box. LIST OF LAW BILLS IN PARLIA- | Summary Jurisdiction to Justices in certain MENT, WITH NOTES. House of Commons. To amend the Law of Copyright. [In Committee.] Mr. Serjt. Talfourd. To extend the Term of Copyright in Designs [In Committee.] To carry into effect the Recommendation of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. [In Committee.] Lord J. Russell. To extend Freemen and Burgesses' Right of Election. Drainage of Lands. [In Committee.] To amend the County Constabulary Act. Mr. F. Maule. Prisons Act Amendment. [For third reading.] cases of Seduction, and breach of promise Metropolitan Police Courts. [For second reading.] To abolish capital punishment in all cases ex- To amend 7 W. 4, & 1 Vict. for regulating at torneys and solicitors in Ireland. Solicitor General for Ireland. For the further amendment of the Poor Law. [For second reading.] For the improvement of Grammar Schools. [In Committee.] REMOVAL OF COURTS FROM WESTMINSTER. Petitions for the Removal of the Courts from Westminster to a more convenient situation, have been presented from Rugby, Reading, Worcester. The House has adjourned till Wednesday the 29th April. THE EDITOR'S LETTER BOX. OUR nineteenth volume will close with the present month, and will comprise a Digested Index to the Cases reported in this Volume, with Title Page, Table of Contents, and General Index. On the completion of the next volume we shall publish a copious Index to the whole work,-comprising a period of ten years, during which more important changes have been effected in the law than in any previous century. A correspondent enquires whether subpænas should be tested in term, or whether they may be tested on the day on which they are issued. We presume that "Vindex," who complains of the mechanical part of his occupation, is capable of higher things: we therefore recommend him to write more at large on the subject of the respective duties of solicitors and their articled clerks. The communication on estates pur autre vie shall be inserted. The letters relating to Powers coupled with Interest, and the Re-admission of Attorneys, are under consideration. We again beg to remind our Querists that they should exert their own abilities before calling on others. The subject of the Law of Marriage within the prohibited degrees of affinity, which we fully noticed in January last, shall be resumed in an early number. We have no less than three correspondents, perhaps To consolidate and amend the Law of Sewers. rejoicing in the name of "Civis : [In Committee.] Small Debts Court for they will each assume some distinctive addition. "A Constant Reader" and A. C. shall be attended to. We regret the delay in noticing some new and valuable works, but hope soon to attend to them. SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY. THE ordinary biography of Sir Samuel Romilly-his birth-his professional and public honours-his labours for the benefit of mankind,—have long been familiar to the public; but we have now the advantage of possessing his own account, not only of his life-his professional struggles-his political career-but his private reflections, written down at the time, his thoughts, his feelings, his opinions on all he passed through in his eventful life. For these, as a whole, we can only refer our readers to the volumes themselves, and a source of great and instructive pleasure they will find them; but we cannot resist putting down some of the early incidents in his life, as the best encouragement to our younger readers to persevere in the right course, and to prove to them, that if steadily pursued, it leads to final success. Samuel Romilly was born in 1757, of respectable, amiable, and religious parents, but neither rich nor great, his father being a jeweller. In his first memoir, he gives a particular account of his early home, his relations, companions, and family servants. He was nearly self-educated, having a passion for books, and was soon destined for the law. His father endeavoured to give him a favourable opinion of the way of life of an attorney : "But unfortunately for the success of his plan, there was one attorney, and only one, among his acquaintance, a certain Mr. Liddel, who lived in Threadneedle Street, in the City, a Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel Romilly, written by himself, with Selections from his Correspondence. Edited by his Sons. In 3 vols. 1840. VOL XIX.No. 586. and was, I believe, eminent in his line. He The idea of a A year or two after, however, the idea was revived, and he was placed in the Six Clerks' Office. "At the age of 16, I was articled to Mr. W. Michael Lally, one of the Sworn Clerks in Chancery, for a period of five years. The prejudice which Mr. Liddel had inspired me with against all lawyers, had been before this time removed, but if any vestige of it had remained, it must have yielded to the temper and manner of Mr. Lally." He works on in the Six Clerks' Office, and goes through all its drudgery very cheerfully; but his pleasures and hopes were still chiefly literary. By degrees, however, a taste for the profession began to arise, although he had completed his twenty-first year before he entered himself of Gray's Inn, "And took there a pleasant set of chambers, arranged my little collection of books about me, and began with great ardour the painful study of the law. My good friend Lally advised me to become the pupil of some ChanCery draftsman for a couple of years, and for the first year to confine myself merely to reading under his direction and with his assist 2 L 498 ance. Sir Samuel Romilly. This advice I followed, and placed me than the jokes which he excited on the myself under the guidance of Mr. Spranger. circuit. His appearance was singular and I was the only pupil he ever had, and indeed puritanical, and the first day he was seen on his drawing business was hardly sufficient to circuit he was named by the young men upon give employment even to a single pupil, I did it "the Quaker;" an appellation by which not, however, repent of the step I had taken. he was always afterwards known. It is not I passed all my mornings and part of most of easy to give an idea of the great familiarity the evenings at his house; he had a good which existed among the young men who library, which I had the use of; he directed my went the circuit, of the strong disposition reading; he explained what I did not under- to. turn things into ridicule which prevailed, stand; he removed many of the difficulties I and how very formidable that ridicule was. met with, and what was of no sinall advantage To all his defects Bickers added that of someto me, I formed a lasting friendship with this times getting drunk; and he has often made very kind-hearted and excellent man, who was me pass very unpleasant hours, under the apuniversally esteemed. As I read I formed a prehension that, balf-elevated with liquor, and common-place book, which has been of great half inspired with the spirit of methodism use to me, even to the present day. It is indeed which possessed him, he would say or do the only way in which law reports can be read something which would afford an inexhauswith much advantage." tible fund of mirth to the whole circuit." He continued, however, his miscellaneous reading, but his main occupation was his profession. "We used to meet at night at each other's chambers to read some of the classics, particularly Tacitus, in whom we (Romilly and an intimate friend, John Baynes) both took great delight, and we formed a little society to which we admitted only two other persons, Holroyd and Christian, for arguing points of law upon questions which we suggested in turn, one argued on each side as counsel, the other two acted the part of judges, and were obliged to give at length the reason of their decisions,exercise which was certainly very useful to all." In Easter Term, 1783, he was called to the bar. -an "By Michaelmas Term I had returned to business, or rather to attend the courts and to receive such business as accident might throw in my way. I had endeavoured to draw chancery pleadings before I was called to the bar, as an introduction to business when I should be called. In that way, however, the occupation I got under the bar was very inconsiderable, but soon after I was admitted to the bar I was employed to draw pleadings in This species of employment went on very gradually increasing for several years, during which I was occupied in the way of my profession, I had scarely once occasion to open my lips in Court." several cases. His keeping Bickers, which he did till the day of his death, is strongly characteristic of Romilly's kindness of heart. His progress, both in London and on the circuit, however, was slow. At the end of his sixth or seventh circuit he had made no progress. the briefs I had had were delivered to me by "I had indeed been in a few causes, but all ** I found this Having thus traced the commencement of his professional fame and fortune, our In 1784 he commenced going the Mid-readers may easily pursue his career, but land Circuit, and describes the leaders and we cannot close this notice without transjuniors in business, and also his own clerk named Bickers, who was the husband of an old servant, and whom he employed out of charity. "I certainly suffered during several years for my good nature. He could ride, and he could stand behind my chair at dinner; but this was almost all he could do; and though I sometimes employed him to copy papers for me, he wrote very ill, and made a thousand faults of spelling. The want of proper attendauce, however, was far less disagreeable to cribing the following passage from his diary, written nearly at the close of his life, in 1817, with the highest professional prospects in view : "The labours of my profession, great as they are, yet leave me some leisure both for domestic and even for literary enjoyments. In these enjoyments, in the retirement of my study, in the bosom of my family, in the atfections of my relations, in the kindness of my friends, in the good-will of my fellow citizens, in the uncourted popularity which I Sir Samuel Romilly.-Practical Points of General Interest.-New Books. 499 know that I enjoy, I find all the good that that he could not consent to grant a rule human life can supply; and I am not, whatever on the subject. Lyons v. De Pass, 9 C. & others may think of me, so blinded by a pre-P. 74. posterous ambition as to wish to change or even to risk "These sacred and homefelt delights, This sober certainty of waking bliss," PURCHASE OF STOCK BY BANKRUPT. By stat. 6 Geo. 4, c. 16, s. 80, it is en for the pomp and parade and splended re-acted, that if any bankrupt shall have any straints of office; for the homage and applause of devoted but interested dependents; for that admiration which the splendour of a high station, by whomsoever possessed, is always certain to command, and for a much larger, but a precarious income, which must bring with it the necessity of a much larger expense. The highest office and the greatest dignity the crown has to bestow might make ine miserable it is impossible that it could render me happier than I already am.” government stock standing in his name of his own right, the Commissioners may, by writing under their hands, order all persons whose act is necessary, to transfer the same into the name of the assignees, and to pay all dividends upon the same to such assignecs. And where stock is purchased by a bankrupt for the purpose of defrauding his creditors in a fictitious name, on a bill being filed by the assignees, the Court of Exchequer will order the Bank to erase from their books the fictitious name, and insert that of PRACTICAL POINTS OF GENERAL the bankrupt. The following was the form INTEREST. MARKET OVERT. THE general rule of law is, that all sales and contracts of anything vendible in fairs and market overt (that is open) shall not only be good between the parties, but also be binding on all those that have any right or property therein. Market overt, in the country is only held on special days, provided for particular towns by charter or prescription; but in London every day, except Sunday, is a market day. The market place or spot of ground set apart by custom for the sale of particular goods, is also, in the country, the only market overt; but in London, every shop in which goods are exposed publicly to sale, is market overt for such things only as the owner professes to trade in, 2 Bla. Com. 449. And it has been recently held, that a sale of goods, being those in which he usually deals, made to a tradesman in his warehouse or shop in the city of London, is a sale in market overt, notwithstanding the construction of the premises be such that a person from the outside cannot see what is going on within. Littledale, J., said, that (referring to the rule as laid down by Blackstone from 5 Coke, 85) in his opinion, the circumstance of the alteration in the shops of London in which glazed windows were substituted for open fronts, did not render a sale in such shops less a sale in market overt than it would have been if they had continued in their former state; and Coleridge, J., said that it would, in his opinion, be productive of so much mischief to have the law on the subject questioned of the decree: "Declare that the sum of 1., stock standing in the Bank books is the property of the bankrupt, and ought to have been invested in his name, but that it was invested in the name of Thomas Rowe, who was a fictitious, person, and let the name of Thomas Rowe be erased, and that of Barnard Angle be inserted." Green v. The Bank of England, 3 Yo. & Col. 722. NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. Points in the Law of Discovery. By James Wigram, Esq. one of Her Majesty's Counsel. Second Edition. London: A. Maxwell. This work, as announced on the title page, is not a complete work on the Law of Discovery as administered in Courts of Equity, but a treatise confined to certain important Points," which are set forth in the following propositions: "1. The pleadings in a cause, and rules of practice, unconnected with the laws of discovery, determine a priori what question or questions in the cause shall first come on for is in all cases confined to the question or ques trial. And the right of a plaintiff to discovery tions in the cause, which, according to the pleadings and practice of the Courts, is or are about to come on for trial. "2. It is the right, as a general rule, of a plaintiff in equity to exact from the defendant a discovery upon oath as to all matters of fact, terial to the plaintiff's case about to come on which, being well pleaded in the bill, are mafor trial, and which the defendant does not by his form of pleading admit. "3. The right of a plaintiff in equity to the benefit of the defendant's oath, is limited to a |
