of contention. The delay in the Court of Session is so great and so well known, that any remarks upon it are quite unnecessary. Nowhere is the "old, old sorrow of the law's delay," as the Journal of Jurisprudence expresses it, so forcibly exemplified as in that Court.

This, however, is only one part of the evil. Edinburgh lawyers may flatter themselves that in discovering one evil which is, we admit, quite sufficient to keep many out of their Courts, they have found the only hindrance to a large increase of business. But they are mistaken. Many can afford to wait for justice, if, in the end, they obtain it at a cost commensurate with the interest at stake. If, on the other hand, success is a loss, and failure a ruin, it is better to stop on the threshold.

In some cases of magnitude the great expense may not be felt, but in by far the greater number of cases the expense is vastly disproportioned to the value of the subject in dispute; and even the party who is successful has always something to pay. If a cause of the value of £50 or £60 is advocated from the Sheriff Court, the pursuer, although successful, will find generally that nearly a third of the amount is required to meet costs necessarily incurred, for which he has no claim against the defender, who has resisted a just demand. The cause of the great expense, and the reason why so much must fall on the successful party, are obvious. Two counsel and two agents are required to conduct the case in the Court of Session. In the Sheriff Court the whole labour and responsibility are laid upon a single agent. When advocated, as a matter of course, the agent who conducted the case from the outset is called upon to correspond with the agent in Edinburgh, to attend consultations and hearings, and to communicate with the client. The agent in Edinburgh conducts the proceedings in the Court there, retains and is advised by counsel; and counsel, of whom there are generally two, senior and junior, advise and plead. Where there is such a division of labour, there is necessarily great expense. No doubt the auditor of the Court of Session ignores altogether the existence of the provincial agent. His account is disallowed, and forms no part of the expense of process. As a consequence, it falls on his client.

But we pass on to another cause of the decay of business in the Court of Session which is as powerful, and we believe less likely to be removed, than any other. It is the increasing confidence of the public in the local Courts. Of late years the jurisdiction of these Courts has been greatly extended, and there is every reason to believe that the work is by no means finished. By the Sheriff Court Act of 1853, too, the forms of procedure in these Courts have been rendered very simple and satisfactory. Year after year, therefore,

we find that the decisions pronounced in these Courts are looked to as more and more authoritative and satisfactory. Our contemporary keeps this entirely out of view. No doubt he regrets that there are so few advocations-that there should only be 17 out of 1000 cases decided in the Sheriff Court brought under review of the Court of Session. But then the only reason assigned is the great delay which takes place in disposing of the advocation. Not a word of the fact that the unsuccessful parties were in many cases satisfied that the Court of Review would affirm the judgment. The writer shuts his eyes to this altogether. He has, however, made a discovery. Every decision was an administration of what he terms "the rough justice of Glasgow." In what particular the rough justice of Glasgow is distinguished from the justice to be got elsewhere, the writer does not inform us. Is the justice of Edinburgh smooth and pleasant? Are all the angularities and irregularities, that render its administration unpleasant in the west, rounded off and removed in the east so as to make it palatable? If costliness improves the quality of justice, then doubtless there are some markets in which it must be a most excellent article. All we know, however, about the justice of Edinburgh from our contemporary is, that it is not rapid in its course. There is no haste in coming to judgment. Everything goes on very slowly, and therefore we suppose we are to conclude that, whatever may be its characteristics, it is not "rough."

DUTIES OF PROCURATORS FOR THE POOR.

A POINT of some importance to the profession has been raised by the Procurators for the Poor, before the Sheriff Court of Greenock, involving the question whether or not they are bound to act gratuitously in establishing the paternity of illegitimate children, whose mothers may have applied for relief to Parochial Boards. In the case in which the point has been raised, a remit was made by the Sheriff to the agents for the poor to ascertain whether the petitioner had a probabilis causa litigandi; these gentlemen having refused to consider the remit made to them on the ground that the case should be proceeded with at the instance of and at the expense of the Parochial Board, a complaint was made by the inspector of poor to the Sheriff (Mr Tennent), who, after hearing parties, ordered a short minute and answers to be lodged containing their views; this has now been done, and the matter is at present under the consideration of the Sheriff. The difficulty is not a new one, it was discussed in Glasgow two

years ago, and the opinion of the late Mr Sheriff Steele then given, and which has been, we believe, since acted upon, was, that in cases of this description the Parochial Board was bound to employ a law-agent, and pay the expenses of the proceedings, and that the Procurators for the Poor were not bound to take up and conduct such cases without remuneration.

The decision of the question, as affecting the interests of the profession, is of some moment, and we are glad to find that Mr Tennent is giving the subject mature consideration. Appending in the meantime the pleadings of the parties, we shall revert to the subject in a future number:

Minute for ALEXANDER M'DONALD and ROBERT BLAIR, jun., writers, and procurators for the poor in Greenock, in the remit to them following upon the petition of MARY COWAN, residing at No. 1 Ardgowan Street, Glebe, Greenock, to be admitted to the benefit of the poor's roll, with a view to establish the paternity of an illegitimate male child, against DONALD M'EACHERN, residing at Old Dock, Greenock.

In compliance with the request of his lordship, the Sheriff-Substitute, the procurators for the poor beg to state the grounds upon which they maintain that they are not bound to proceed with the present remit. It will be convenient to state these grounds under the six following articles, keeping in view the recommendation of his lordship, the Sheriff, to divest the statement as much as possible of argument or unnecessary illustration:

1. The Act of Parliament 1424, c. 45, and the relative Act of Sederunt applicable to Sheriff Courts, of 11th July, 1839, with regard to the gratuitous services of procurators for the poor, do not contemplate their acting in that capacity for a public Board constituted by Act of Parliament, like the Parochial Board, in proceedings having the direct object and intention of relieving that Board from the burden of supporting illegitmate children, but they have regard in the general case, though, of course, not exclusively to the individual cases, of parties who may be able to support themselves, though not to pursue or defend actions affecting their patrimonial rights.

2. The Parochial Board of Greenock, acting upon this view of the matter, have a regularly paid agent-viz., Mr Thomas King, writer, Greenock, who takes charge of all prosecutions in which they are interested, and particularly of actions relative to the obligations of individuals to support their wives and offspring. Mr King appears in this discussion on the part of the Parochial Board, while Mr Neill, although professing at this stage to act on behalf of the petitioner, appeared at the first diet, and now in reality appears, as a member of the Finance Committee of the said Board, so that the present question is one substantially between that body and the procurators for the poor.

3. Maintaining that there is a material distinction between the case of a person merely in poverty as a proper object for the benefit of the poor's roll and the present case, it may be stated that the child in question was born in the Greenock Poor's House, on 19th July last, and that it is a legal charge upon the Parochial

Board of Greenock, the mother being unable to support it, and from her own statements she was sent to the procurators for the poor to take steps for establishing paternity, in order that the Board might be put in a position to operate relief against the father of any advances made or to be made by them to the child-in short, to get quit of the burden of supporting it. The average annual number of such applications made to the procurators for the poor is about 40 or 50, involving a large amount of professional trouble, and sometimes expense, irrespective of the criminal department of their gratuitous duty. The Parochial Board wish to throw the labour of attending to all these cases upon the procurators for the poor, without any payment, while they send every case in which they allow the usual fees to Mr King. The procurators for the poor consider it to be a most unreasonable thing that members of the legal profession, paying, as they do, poor's rates like the rest of the public, should be singled out to make such a large sacrifice of their time, and be expected also to pay an annual attorney license to Government to do the work of a public Board for nothing. They do not think that it was ever intended by the Act of Parliament upon which the Acts of Sederunt passed with reference to the poor's roll that this should be the case, more particularly where, as in the present case, the Parochial Board has a paid legal and medical staff.

4. It is maintained that the petitioner is not entitled to insist upon the procurators for the poor acting in this case gratuitously; she is simply put forward by the Parochial Board to enable them, if possible, to escape from a duty and liability incumbent on themselves. By the law of Scotland, incorporating a principle derived from the Roman law, with regard to the peculiar rights and obligations of the familia, a bastard is held to be a filius nullius. (Weepers, 6, D. 1166, 20th June, 1844.) One effect of this principle is that the father and mother are bound to support it mutually. What is claimed from the father is what the law considers to be his proportion of the expense of its support. The mother must bear her own proportion, which she is generally held to do in the lower ranks of life by nursing and taking charge of the child. The action of aliment against the father is, therefore, not for a debt due or obligation prestable to the mother not herself discharging it, but to the child, so much so that she has no right to discharge the father of the future aliment, so as to relieve him from any action for payment on behalf of the child. (A. B. v. Chisholm, 12th Feb., 1842.)

5. There is a direct claim by a mother unable to support her illegitimate child against the Parochial Board, to make good the unfulfilled obligation of the father, which cannot be met by their insisting upon her first discussing him; and so primary and direct is this obligation in the Parochial Board, that the relatives of the mother, or even a stranger, advancing such aliment to the child, have the like action against them for repayment. (Robert v. Fife, 5th February, 1825, 3d section, 349; Orr, 9th July, 1831, 9th section, 928; Weepers, ut supra.) It results from this state of the law that the Parochial Board are, so to speak, the legal guardians of natural children, having relief against the father for their advances. The oporation of the mother, therefore,

EXECUTION OF DECREES.

THE Member for the Ayr District of Burghs has, on more than one occasion during the last few years, introduced into Parliament, but failed to carry, a bill for the purpose of rendering the judgments of the different Supreme Courts of Great Britain available in any part of the United Kingdom. The necessity for such a measure is becoming every day more apparent, and we trust that Mr Crawford will renew his attempt to pass his bill into law in the course of the coming session. With the exception of the Lord Advocate and Mr Dunlop, Mr Crawford seems to be the only Scotch member who is capable of originating any measure, and we should be sorry if he were deterred by previous failures from pressing on the House of Commons a bill which would go farther to prevent frauds, and to increase the security of commercial dealing than any legislative enactment of recent years.

Mercantile men know as well as lawyers, that there is at present nothing further necessary to defeat the personal execution of a Scotch decree, than that the debtor should remove into England. He does not require to conceal himself, he is perfectly secure; and although there may be a dozen warrants for his apprehension in Glasgow, he may live and trade as openly in Liverpool as if he had not a creditor in the world.

jurisdiction he may have removed. This is surely a simple and a wise expedient, and it is difficult to imagine what possible objection can be urged against it. All the Courts act under the same authority, and their judgments are entitled to equal respect. In Mr Crawford's bill it is not proposed to take from any of the Courts a privilege they already possess, or to confer on any of the Courts a power which will not be conferred on all alike. It is impossible that there can be any competition of jurisdiction, or that the Court can be called upon to deal with a question to which rules of law unknown to them should be applied. All that is asked or required is that every Court shall give the same effect to a decree of another competent Court as they do to their own.

In Mr Crawford's bill it is proposed to limit the privilege of enforcing decrees to decrees of the Supreme Court, and to require the concurrence of another Supreme Court. Now, we confess we see no reason for this limitation. If the remedy is to be of any practical benefit it must include the judgments of the Sheriff Courts of Scotland and the County Courts of England. Indeed, it is of more importance in the decrees which these Courts pronounce than in any other.

They are more numerous, and they more frequently apply to persons who take advantage of the protection which a removal to a different part of the kingdom affords than the judgments of the Supreme Courts.

If the extension we suggest be made part of the bill, and be passed into law, it will be one of the wisest, and in its practical operation, the most useful enactment which has been engrossed on the statute book within the last few years back. And we hope ere next session to be able to congratulate Mr Crawford on his legislative ability and perseverance. Review.

Now, it is clear that the sooner such a state of matters is altered the better, and it is surprising that it should have existed so long, when the remedy is at once so obvious and so simple as that proposed by Mr Crawford.

All that his bill proposes is that the judgment or decree of any of the Supreme Courts regularly pronounced against a person subject to their jurisdiction may be enforced against the debtor in whatever part of the kingdom he may reside, or being presented to and recorded in the books of the Court, to whose

THE USE OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC AND OF STUDENTS AND STRANGERS.

By JAMES LORIMER, Advocate. Edinburgh: T. & T. Člark. THERE is no class of books of which the utility is more problematical than popular manuals on professional subjects. To the professional man they convey no information, and to the general reader they are but too apt to impart that little learning which is a dangerous thing. It is but justice to Mr Lorimer, however, to say that his book is the best and most modest of its class that has ever come under our notice, and that it communicates in a

readable form such information as to the laws of our common country as every educated man ought to possess. In his title-page, in his preface, and elsewhere through the work, Mr Lorimer wisely and honestly disclaims all pretensions to making "every man his own lawyer," and throughout his book there are no traces of the clap-trap and quackery by which similar attempts are but too often characterised. From the clearness and precision of the author's 's style, and his skilful avoidance of all unnecessary technicality, his little work is admirably suited to two of the classes for whose use it is intended-the general public