Service upon a company is given at their place of business. It may be done by giving the service copy and schedule to one of the partners, or to a clerk found there. (1) It is not however necessary that it should be at the principal place of business. It is sufficient if it be the branch at which the business in question has been conducted; (n) unless, indeed, where there be anything (which the pursuer ought to know) in the special contract of copartnery, or elsewhere, requiring citation to be given at the head office. If individual partners are called along with the company they must be cited in the same way as other individuals. Corporations are cited by delivering a copy to the preses when the body has met for deliberation, or by giving a copy to each of the office-bearers. (o) Railway and other statutory companies frequently have special clauses in their Acts of Parliament as to the mode of citation, and to these it is necessary to attend. Companies registered under the Companies Act 1862 may be cited through the post, by sending the copy writ and schedule addressed to the company at their registered office. (p)

8. Equivalents to Service not Admitted. The requisites of citation being statutory, they must be literally obeyed, unless the defender agree to waive them. Thus, things that are equivalent, or which might even be supposed to be better than the statutory regulations, will not be admitted. It will

(by Cowan) pp. 154 and 274, and the cases there cited. The law has been altered as to the Court of Session by 13 and 14 Vict. c. 36, § 22, and the terms of this are so broad that doubts may be entertained whether they do not extend to the Sheriff Court. See also Campbell on Citation, pp. 48

and 365.

(1) Wordie v. M'Donald, 15 Dec. 1831, 10 S. 142.

(n) Young v. Livingstone, 13 March 1860, 22 D. 983.

(0) Per curiam in Dalrymple v. Bertram, 23 June 1762, M. 752. (p) 25 and 26 Vict. c. 89. § 62.

not, for example, be sufficient citation to give the service copy and schedule to the wife when not in her husband's house, (g) or to a partner of a company found upon the street, or to leave them for an individual at his shop or counting-house instead of his dwelling-place, (r) though all these things might be thought more rational than some of the modes of service which are recognised.

9. Accepting Service. The defender may, however, waive all objections to citation, and he is held to do this when he appears and pleads without stating the objection in initio litis. (8) He may also dispense with citation altogether. This is done by writing on the summons what is called an acceptance of service, which simply says that service of the summons is accepted by the defender, and is signed by him or his agent. In the Court of Session it is customary for an agent accepting service to produce a mandate specially authorising him to do so. This rule is not acted on in the Sheriff Court; though, of course, a mandate would have to be produced were the pursuer to ask for it.

10. Schedule of Citation and Service Copy.-The schedule of citation is the partly written and partly printed document which the officer delivers to or leaves for the defender. In form it is a memorandum of the message which the officer is supposed to deliver verbally to him.(t) It is signed by the officer only. Along with this, in all

(9) Cassils v. Roxburgh, 11 Dec. 1769, M. 3695.

(r) Sharp v. Garden, 21 Feb. 1822, 1 S. 374.

(t) The Act of 1853 shortened the form of the execution returned on the summons, but the schedule of citation remains in the form pre

(8) Hamilton v. Monkland Co., 19 viously in use. March 1863, 1 Macph. 672.

copy of the

The name of

ordinary actions, the messenger delivers a summons, (u) signed by him on each page. (v) the pursuer's procurator must be marked on the back of the copy and on the schedule. (x) If there be more defenders. than one, each gets a schedule of citation, and a copy either of the whole summons or of so much of it as concerns himself. It is not necessary to serve copies of accounts referred to in the summons. (y)

11. Execution of Citation.-The execution of citation is the docquet which the officer annexes to the summons after service.(z) It must set forth the mode in which the citation has been given, whether personally or whether at the dwelling-place, with or without access. (a) It is not usual, however, to set this forth in detail, as, for example, to give the name of a servant with whom the copy was left. The execution is signed by the officer and the witness. When complete it is held to be prima facie evidence of the truth of what it sets forth; and so far is this rule carried that it is not competent to challenge the execution of citation on any ground not patent on examining it, without, in the Court of Session, bringing an action to reduce it. (b) In the Sheriff-Court, where actions of reduction are unknown, the challenge may be made by what are called "articles of improbation," for which special provision is made.(c) These,

of course, are unnecessary where the ground of objection is patent. Although the defender is thus restricted in attacking the execution, the pursuer is left at liberty to have it amended. If the service itself has been all in order the officer may write out a new execution in proper form on its turning out that the first one has been defective.

1. How Appearance Entered.-The style of the summons which calls on the defender to appear personally in Court upon the sixth day after the date of citation, in the hour of cause, with continuation of days, is a repetition of the older style, and does not represent what the defender has now to do in order to enter appearance to defend the action. He now lodges with the Sheriff-Clerk, before the expiry of the six days (called the inducia), a notice of appearance in the form prescribed by the Act of 1853. This notice simply sets forth that he enters appearance to defend the action, and is signed by himself or his agent.

2. Entering Appearance after Proper Period.—It is not certain whether a notice of appearance can be received after the expiry of the sixth day. The question cannot arise if decree have been taken in absence, for the defender proceeds in that case by way of reponing note. But where decree has not been pronounced, the defender cannot well ask to

be reponed; and it has not been left quite clear what step is open to him. The practice varies. In some courts the defender used not to be allowed to appear on any terms in the interval between the expiry of the sixth day after citation and the time when it might please the pursuer to move for decree as in absence. (d) In other courts the defender has always been allowed to appear after the expiry of the six days at any time before decree in absence is actually pronounced, on obtaining special leave from the Sheriff, which is granted, on such conditions as to the expenses which the late appearance may have occasioned, as may be thought right. (e) The latter appears the preferable, and is now believed to be the general, course.(g) It is a waste of time and expense to insist upon the necessity of having a decree pronounced in order that it may immediately be recalled. Of course if the Legislature have positively required such an absurdity, the courts must submit; but there does not seem to be any such necessity. The words of the second section of the Act 1853, which are thought to require it, deal with what the Sheriff is to do if appearance be not entered within the six days, but they do not say that the Sheriff must pronounce decree in absence. All that they say is that he may; which leaves it clear that he also may not, and may therefore follow the other course, which is certainly more consistent with the ends of justice. This course is also more in accordance with the practice before 1853.

3. Withdrawing Appearance.-A defender who has entered appearance is allowed to withdraw it so long as he

(d) Corless v. Maver, 1866, 5 Scottish Law Magazine, 68.

1865, 4 Scottish Law Magazine, 115. (g) See Journal of Jurisprudence,

(e) Steven v. Carnegie, 14 July vol. xvii. p. 202.