High Court of Admiralty before the passing of this Act; and all applications of a summary nature connected with such causes may be made to the Lord Ordinary on the Bills: Provided always that all such causes, not exceeding the value of twenty-five pounds sterling, shall be instituted and carried on in the first instance before an inferior court, in the manner directed and with the exceptions specified in an Act of the Parliament of Scotland, passed in the year sixteen hundred and seventy two, intituled An Act concerning the regulation of the judicatories. (1672, c. 40.)

22. [Sheriffs to have jurisdiction in maritime causes.]—And be it enacted that the Sheriffs of Scotland and their substitutes shall, within their respective sheriffdoms, including the navigable rivers, ports, harbours, creeks, shores, and anchoring grounds in or adjoining such sheriffdoms, hold and exercise original jurisdiction in all maritime causes and proceedings, civil and criminal, including such as may apply to persons residing furth of Scotland, of the same nature as that heretofore held and exercised by the High Court of Admiralty.*

23. [Maritime causes to be tried in same manner as other causes.]—And be it enacted that the finding of caution and using of arrestment heretofore observed in the High Court of Admiralty, and all regulations relative thereto, may be enforced in the foresaid courts respectively; and maritime causes may be heard and determined by the Sheriff according to the same modes and rules which are applicable in the Sheriff Court to causes not maritime, including the mode prescribed in an Act passed in the tenth year of the reign of his late Majesty King George the Fourth, intituled An Act for the more effectual recovery of small debts, and for diminishing the expenses of litigation in causes of small amount in the Sheriff Courts in Scotland (10th Geo. IV., c. 55); and the sentences, interlocutors, and decrees pronounced by Sheriffs in maritime causes shall be subject to review by the Courts of Session and Justiciary respectively in the same way and manner in which sentences, interlocutors, and decrees of Sheriffs in similar causes not maritime are subject to review at present, and not otherwise : Provided always that it shall not be competent to the Sheriff to try any crime committed on the seas of a nature which it would not be competent for that judge to try if the crime had been committed on land.

24. [Provision when counties are separated by water.]—And be it enacted that where counties are separated from each other by a river, or by a firth or estuary, the Sheriffs of the counties adjoining to the sides thereof shall have a cumulative jurisdiction over the whole intervening space so occupied by water: Provided always that the pursuer of all civil cases shall, where such cumulative jurisdiction applies, bring the cause before the Sheriff of that county within which the defender may reside; and it is provided that where there are several defenders in the same cause, residing in different counties, the same rules shall apply in regard to the citation

Explained by 1 & 2 Vict. c. 119, 21, infra, p. 535.

of the whole of such defenders before the same Sheriff Court, which are observed in similar circumstances with respect to causes not maritime; and it is provided farther that Sheriffs shall respectively have power to remit such causes from their own court to that of another Sheriff ob contingentiam, or for other sufficient cause.

27. [Sheriff Clerks to act as clerks to Sheriffs in maritime causes.]—And be it enacted that the Sheriff Clerks of the several counties of Scotland shall respectively act as clerks to the Sheriffs in maritime causes; provided always that neither that officer, nor any other person appointed to any office, or acquiring right to any fees or emoluments in virtue of the provisions of this Act, shall be entitled to prefer any claim to compensation in consequence of the subsequent abolition of such office or fees, or of any alteration therein.

32. [Actions of aliment.]—And it is further enacted that actions of aliment may be instituted, heard, and determined in any Sheriff Court of Scotland.

33. [Consistorial actions to be instituted in the Court of Session.]—And be it enacted that all actions of declarator of marriage, and of nullity of marriage, and all actions of declarator of legitimacy and of bastardy, and all actions of divorce, and all actions of separation à menså et thoro, shall be competent to be brought and insisted on only before the Court of Session.*

7 Will. IV., & 1 Vict., c. 39.-An ACT to interpret the words "Sheriff," "Sheriff Clerk," "Shire," "Sheriffdom," and "County," occurring in Acts of Parliament relating to Scotland.-12th July 1837.

Whereas it is expedient that the words " sheriff," "sheriff clerk,” "shire," "sheriffdom," and "county," used in Acts of Parliament relating to

The Act 13 & 14 Vict. c. 36 (to facilitate procedure in Court of Session) enacted and declared (§ 16) that all the provisions of the above Act "applicable to actions of declarator of marriage, and of nullity of marriage, and to actions of declarator of

legitimacy and of bastardy, and to actions of divorce, and to actions of separation à mensa et thoro, are and shall be applicable to actions of adherence, and all other consistorial actions though not specially mentioned in the said recited Act."

Scotland, should be interpreted in manner hereinafter mentioned: Be it enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that in all cases in which the words "sheriff," "sheriff clerk," "shire," " sheriffdom," and "county" occur in any existing Act of Parliament, or shall occur in any future Act relating to Scotland, the word "sheriff" shall be deemed and taken to comprehend and apply to any steward, the words "sheriff-clerk" to comprehend "steward-clerk," and the words "shire," "sheriffdom," and "county" to comprehend and apply to any stewartry in Scotland, excepting where otherwise specially provided, and excepting cases in which there is anything in the subject or context repugnant to such meaning and application.*

1 & 2 Vict., c. 114.-An ACT to amend the Law of Scotland in matters relating to Personal Diligence, Arrestments, and Poindings.—16th August 1838.

Whereas it is expedient to improve the form and to diminish the expense of the diligence of the law in Scotland against the persons of debtors, and to amend the law as to the diligence of arrestment and poinding: Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same :— [Extracts of Court of Session, Teind Court, and Court of Justiciary decrees to contain warrant to arrest, charge, and poind.]—That from and after the thirty-first day of December One thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight, where an extract shall be issued of a decree or Act pronounced or to be pronounced by the Court of Session, or by the Court of Commission for Teinds, or by the Court of Justiciary, or of a decree proceeding upon any deed, decree-arbitral, bond, protest of a bill, promissory-note, or banker's note, or upon any other obligation or document on which execution may competently proceed, recorded in the books of Council and Session or of the Court of Justiciary, the extractor shall, in terms of the schedule (Number 1) hereunto annexed (or as near to the form thereof as circumstances will permit), insert a warrant to charge the debtor or obligant to pay the debt or perform the obligation within the days of charge, under the pain of poinding and imprisonment, and to arrest and poind, and for that purpose to open shut and lockfast places; which extract shall be subscribed and

* As to the general interpretation of all Acts of Parliament, see 13 Vict., c. 21.

prepared in other respects as extracts are at present subscribed and prepared, and for which extract no higher fees shall be exigible than those which are payable as by law established.

2. [Competent to arrest.]—And be it enacted, That it shall be lawful by virtue of such extract to arrest in like manner as if letters of arrestment on liquid grounds of debt or letters of horning containing warrant to arrest had been issued under the signet.

3. [Competent to charge.

Officer's execution.]-And be it enacted, That it shall be lawful by virtue of such extract to charge the debtor or obligant therein mentioned to pay the sums of money or to perform the obligation therein specified within the days of charge, from and after the date of charge, under the pain of poinding and imprisonment; and the officer executing the same shall return an execution in terms of the schedule (Number 2) hereunto annexed, or as near to the form thereof as circumstances will permit.

4. [Competent to poind.]-And be it enacted, That on the expiration of the days of charge it shall be lawful, by virtue of such extract, to poind the moveable effects of the debtor in payment of the sums of money therein mentioned, as if letters of poinding or letters of horning containing warrant to poind had been issued, and for that purpose to open shut and lockfast places.

5. [Execution to be registered; and to have the effect of denunciation and to accumulate interest.]—And be it enacted, That it shall be competent at any time within year and day after a charge has expired to present such extract and execution of charge to the keeper of the General Register of Hornings at Edinburgh, and the keeper shall thereupon record the execution in that register, and state therein the name and designation of the person by whom the extract and execution were presented, and also the date of presentation; which registration shall have the same effect as if the debtor or obligant had been denounced rebel in virtue of letters of horning, and the said letters, with the executions of charge and denunciation, had been recorded according to the forms now in use, and shall have the effect to accumulate the debt and interest into a capital sum, whereon interest shall thereafter become due.

6. [Extract and execution with certificate of registration to be presented in the Bill Chamber for warrant to imprison.]—And be it enacted, That on the execution being so recorded the keeper of the register shall write upon the extract and upon the execution (if it be written on paper apart) a certificate of the registration thereof in terms or to the effect of the schedule (Number 3) hereunto annexed, which he shall date and subscribe; and if warrant to imprison be required, a writer to the signet shall indorse and subscribe on the extract a minute to the effect of the schedule (Number 4) hereunto annexed (or as near to that form as circumstances will permit), and the extract, with the execution and certificate of registration and in

dorsed minute, shall be presented in the Bill Chamber of the Court of Session, and the clerk thereof shall, if there be no lawful cause to the contrary, write on the extract this deliverance, "Fiat ut petitur," and shall date and subscribe the same; and it shall be lawful by virtue of the said extract and deliverance to search for, take, apprehend and imprison the debtor or obligant, and, if necessary for that purpose, to open shut and lockfast places; and magistrates and keepers of prisons are hereby authorised and required to receive into and detain in prison the person of the debtor or obligant till liberated in due course of law, in like manner as if letters of caption had been issued under the signet.

7. [Execution at the instance of a person acquiring right to extract.]— And be it enacted, That where any person shall acquire right to an extract of a decree or act issued as aforesaid it shall be competent to him to present in the Bill Chamber the extract, with the execution of charge (if a charge shall have been given), and certificate of registration (if the same shall have been registered), and a minute endorsed thereon, in the form of the schedule (Number 5) hereunto annexed (or as near thereto as circumstances will permit), subscribed by a writer to the signet, with the assignation, confirmation, or other legal evidence of such acquired right, praying for authority (as the case may be) to arrest, charge, poind the effects of, or (as the case may be) to imprison the said debtor or obligant, and open shut and lockfast places; and the clerk shall, if there be no lawful cause to the contrary, write on the extract this deliverance," Fiat ut petitur," and he shall date and subscribe the same, and endorse the same date on the documents produced, and subscribe with his initials the date so endorsed ; and the extract with such deliverance shall be a warrant to arrest, charge, poind, and open shut and lockfast places, or (as the case may be) to search for, take, apprehend, and imprison as aforesaid, at the instance of such person.

8. [Letters of horning may be issued as formerly, but no expenses exigible. Extracts in terms of this Act may be obtained where extracts issued prior to its commencement.]—And be it enacted, That nothing herein contained shall prevent any person from obtaining extracts, and also letters of horning, poinding, and arrestment, or letters of arrestment and letters of caption, according to the former law and practice, if he shall see fit to proceed in that way, in place of in the manner hereby provided; but it is hereby declared that in such case no part of the expenses thereof, except the expenses of the extract, shall be exigible from the debtor or obligant, or his estate, unless it be shown that it is incompetent to proceed in the way herein provided; and where an extract has been issued before the commencement of this Act it shall be competent for the person in whose favour such extract has been issued, or the person having right thereto, to obtain an extract in terms of this Act, or a warrant subjoined