responsibility of the members, or the right to sue and be sued in the name of an officer and other minor privileges, sometimes tempt trading and insurance companies to apply for local acts. It is, however, when the scheme of the operations of the company requires that they should obtain possession of the property of owners of whose willingness to part with it they are not assured, and when their operations are on so extensive a scale, and come so much in contact with the community as to demand a peculiar administrative and judicial system with a special police force-that local acts are imperatively required. The establishment of harbours, docks, and canals, has thus long been the object of local legislation, while in later years the great advance of the railway system has prodigiously increased the formation of these small internal engineering republics. A large portion of the law of public works will thus fall to be considered in the portion of this work devoted to the means of internal transit.* In 1845, an act was passed for the establishment of constables in connexion with public works, which will have to be noticed under the head of Public Police.+

SECT. 2.-Local Acts.

Standing Orders.-There are certain standing orders of both houses of Parliament, altered and amended from time to time, the terms of which must be complied with by all promoters of local acts, to secure the bills being passed through their several stages in the respective houses of Parliament by which the orders are passed. In so far as respects their own right to pass or reject a measure, the respective houses are understood to have the power of requiring such preliminary notices to be made, and such other rules to be followed as they may think proper to order. As it has sometimes, however, been found that parties cannot get these rules obeyed unless they are entitled to compel others to co-operate with them, the standing orders have been in some measure aided by statute. Thus, in 1837, an act was passed requiring all sheriff-clerks, clerks of the peace, town-clerks, schoolmasters, postmasters, and other persons, in whose hands either house of Parliament required documents to be lodged, to receive them, and keep them accessible under certain reasonable restrictions to parties requiring to consult them.1 By other acts, arrangements are made for the payment of

* See Part VII.-+ See Part VIII.-17 Wm. IV. and 1 Vict. c. 83.

deposits, required by the orders of either house as preliminary to applications for local acts, into one of the chartered banks, "in the name and with the privity of the Queen's remembrancer." 19 1

Preliminary Inquiry.-In 1846, an act was passed "for making preliminary inquiries in certain cases of application for local acts.' 112 In the case of projects "for the establishment of any water-works, or for draining, paving, cleansing, lighting, or otherwise improving any district or place, or for making, maintaining, or altering any burial-ground or cemetery," the act directs that a notice of intention to bring in any such measure shall be made to the office of the Woods and Forests on the last day of the November preceding, or if that day should be a Sunday, on the day before.3 When the proposed act is to affect any port or harbour, tidal water or navigable river, such a notice is to be sent to the Admiralty. The notice must contain an account of the project, along with copies of all such documents as require to be deposited by the standing orders of the two houses. The commissioners before taking steps for making an inquiry, may require security to be found for payment of the expense of doing so. The inquiry is conducted by a surveying officer appointed by the commissioners, who repairs to the spot, and after notice by publication in the newspapers and otherwise, takes evidence and examines documents.7 He may issue summonses for the attendance of witnesses, and if a witness neglect or refuse to attend, or refuse to exhibit any document, he becomes liable to a penalty not exceeding £5.8 The penalty is recoverable before two or more justices, who may levy it by distress and sale; it goes to the fund for the relief of the poor.9 The expenses of the investigation must be borne by the promoters of the measure.10

Consolidating Acts.-Ever since the quantity of legislation for local purposes was found to be so rapidly increasing, it was felt that a certain portion of almost every local act, being intended for the accomplishment of the same end to which the clauses in many other local acts were directed, was a repetition, which not only caused redundancy in legislation, but was productive of much confusion and litigation, by giving one public company a different method of accomplishing the same ends from another. Thus, there might be two railways forming one line, but regulated by different local

1 1 & 2 Vict. c. 117. 9 & 10 Vict. c. 20.-29 & 10 Vict. c. 106.-3 Ibid. § 1. - Ibid. § 7.5 Ibid. § 1.—6 Ibid. § 6.-7 Ibid. § 4.— Ibid.—9 Ibid. § 5.10 Ibid. § 6.

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acts, and as the acts were not drawn with any reference to each other, what was an offence on the one was no offence on the other, and the method of recovering penalties under the one act might be as distinct from that under the other as the law of Scotland from the civil code of France.

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To remedy this defect, three acts were passed in 1845, applying to three different classes of local acts, and each embodying certain clauses which every local act of that class would naturally contain. The first of these, "to consolidate in one act certain provisions usually inserted in acts with respect to the constitution of companies incorporated for carrying on undertakings of a public nature in Scotland," and called the "Companies' Clauses Consolidation Act," is essentially a joint stock company's act, containing the clauses essential to any trading, insurance, or banking establishment. It contains rules relating to the election, functions, and responsibility of directors, the powers of general meetings, the responsibility of officers, the declaring, making, and enforcing of calls, the auditing of accounts, the creating and limiting of stock, and the winding up and adjustment in case of bankruptcy. It thus embodies nearly all the clauses usually contained in the deed of settlement or contract of copartnership of such a body, and cannot fail to furnish what must necessarily be the most approved style for such a document, applicable even to those Joint Stock companies which do not aim at procuring an act of Parliament.

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Another of these acts "for consolidating in one act certain provisions usually inserted in acts authorizing the taking of lands for undertakings of a public nature in Scotland," is commonly cited as The Lands' Clauses Consolidation Act." It contains, in 144 sections, the usual clauses for enabling the promoters of public works either to purchase and become proprietors of lands for the purposes of their undertaking, or judicially to compel unwilling proprietors, or those demanding terms supposed to be unjust, to part with their property at a valuation fixed by a jury. It contains all the clauses necessary for making arbitrations effectual, and for rendering valid conveyances made by heirs of entail and other individuals whose titles are limited. Not the least important portion of the measure, is a series of provisions for reinvesting the purchase-money in these cases according to the destinations of the original title, and for preserving the interest of creditors and lessees.

18 & 9 Vict. c. 17.-2 Ibid. c. 19.

The third in number of these statutes "for consolidating in one act certain provisions usually inserted in acts authorizing the making of Railways in Scotland," is usually called "the Railways' Clauses Consolidation Act." It contains, in 155 sections, the clauses which practice and experience have, during the past twenty years, established as provisions which are peculiar to railways, as distinct from other public works. They relate to the rules that must be obeyed in the structure of the railway; the precautions that must be adopted for the safety of other works, such as water and gas pipes; the engineering arrangements to be adopted as to the crossing of roads, bridges, &c.; the temporary use of neighbouring lands during the construction of the works; the safety and sufficient working of mines under or near the railway; the powers of the directors to make by-laws affecting the public; the services which the directors are bound to give to the public for the statutory powers conferred on them; the charges for the conveyance of goods and persons so far as these are regulated by statute; and the rules and restrictions as to carriages and engines. In the internal management, the distribution of stock, and other matters in which the shareholders are more particularly concerned as partners of a company, railway acts will have to embody a portion of the Companies' Clauses Consolidation Act; and the powers for taking lands will have to be adopted from the consolidation act for that purpose.

In each of these statutes there is this general clause, 66 and all the provisions of this act, save so far as they shall be expressly varied or excepted by any such act [that is by any local act] shall apply to the undertaking authorized thereby, as far as the same shall be applicable to such undertaking, and shall, as well as the clauses and provisions of every other act which shall be incorporated with such act, form part of such act, and be construed together therewith as forming one act."

These acts are considered of so much public importance, as embodying a great part of the substance of all local legislation subsequent to the year 1845, that they are printed at length in an appendix to this volume.

Actions on Local Acts.-As part of the general statutory law on local legislation, an act was passed" to amend the aw relating to double costs, notices of action, limitations of actions, and pleas of the general issue, under certain acts of

18 & 9 Vict. c. 33.

parliament." In so far as it can have any application to Scotland, this act merely affects the practice in trials by jury in the Court of Session, arising out of local acts.

CHAPTER VI.

SAVINGS BANKS.

On the 9th September 1835, an act was passed declaring the provisions of 9th Geo. IV. c. 92 (then applicable only to England and Ireland), and of 3d and 4th Wm. IV. c. 14, to apply to all savings banks thereafter established in Scotland.2 The old act (59th Geo. III. c. 62) still applies to those savings banks previously established, which have not taken advantage of the new regulations.

SECT. 1.-Banks Established under the Old Act.

It will be unnecessary to describe the method of establishing a bank under the old law, as it is only applicable to banks in existence. The chief alteration made on it by the new system, which was farther amended in 1844, is in the organization for converting the deposits into government securities. (See below.) On the other hand, however, there is no limitation to the sums which may be deposited under the old system. Extracts, receipts, securities, law proceedings, advertisements, bonds by treasurers, &c., are not subject to stamp-duty.3 The property is vested in the trustees appointed according to the rules, who may pursue and be pursued in courts of law in their own name. Deposits may be bequeathed by a writing, with a signature or mark attested by witnesses, or holograph. Where the sum does not exceed £20, confirmation is unnecessary, and where it does not exceed £50, no stamp or legacy duty is charged. Deposits are to be paid to representatives, if there be no special claimant within six months after the holder's decease.5 Disputes are finally decided by the Sheriff without appeal.6

1 5 & 6 Vict. c. 97.-25 & 6 Wm. IV. c. 57.-8 59 Geo. III. c. 62, §§ 4, 6. Ibid. § 7.- Ibid. §§ 7, 8.- Ibid. § 9.

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