To Readers and Correspondents All anonymous communications are invariably rejected. 38. 6d Os. 6d. CHARGES FOR ADVERTISEMENTS. SUBSCRIPTION TO THE LAW TIMES. One year Half-a-year 0 2 13 0 1 1 0 1 7 6 Law and the Lawyers. dressings, ploughings, and growing crops. The only question is as to drainage. In practice the tenant does not drain systematically without previously bargaining with his landlord that a portion of the cost shall be borne by the owner. Usually the tenant provides the labour and the landlord the tiles, and no additional rent is charged. But if the whole cost of drainage is paid by the landlord, the tenant pays 5 per cent. on the outlay in the form of added rent to that amount. THE case of Jane Menhennitt, which we noticed last week, is causing some consternation. A correspondent, who is a perpetual commissioner, writes to us from Horbling, in Lincolnshire, and remarks that the decision raises a most serious question for country practitioners in small towns and rural districts where commissioners are few O and far between. "Our commissions," he says, "will be next to useless, and the expense and inconvenience to the parties of travelling (often with no railway available) to some large town where two disinterested commissioners can be. found, will be great ;" and he makes the suggestion that "some memorial or joint action on the part of the Profession should be at once adopted for the purpose of informing' the court, as this is just one of those points of practice and of difficulty which the Judges (with every disposition to meet the convenience of the Profession) cannot understand or realise without the explanation of those practically acquainted with the matter." The case of Horbling illustrates the hardship. There is no commissioner within nine miles, the nearest being at Sleaford. The other neighbouring towns where two disinterested commissioners are to be found are distant respectively twenty, eighteen, sixteen, and fourteen miles. It would appear, therefore, almost inevitable that the decision should be disregarded. lodger the use of his sitting-room-Joint occupation...... 462 Is the vacancy in the Queen's Bench to be filled COURT OF EXCHEQUER. THE BEVERLEY COMMISSIONERS; Ez parte FLINT AND Bribery commissioners-Jurisdiction of-Adjournment REG. WILLIAM MARTIN Coining-Felony-Having possession of counterfeit coin after previous conviction.. NISI PRIUS. GIRARDOT E. FITZPATRICK Action for goods sold-Evidence of appropriation COURT FOR DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES. MILLER . MILLER Restitution of conjugal rights-Husband successful-Wife condemned in costs up? There are differences of opinion whether it will be; but there is, in the Profession, at 46 least, an almost unanimous opinion that it ought to be, and equally so that the Times has erred in putting forward Mr. Commissioner BACON as the right man for the place. We believe that the vacancy will be supplied, and that the new 470 Judge will be Mr. GEORGE DENMAN, Q. C. 469 471 THE newspaper proprietors have by deputation represented to the Lord CHANCELLOR their Salvage-Form of tender-"Costs (if any) due by law"...... 472 claims to be upon the Commission of the Peace. COURT OF ADMIRALTY. THE HICKMAN Solicitors should follow in the same course. The march of education and intelligence ought THE library of the late Lord Justice SELWYN was sold by Messrs. HODGSON on Tuesday and Wednesday. All the reports were most carefully noted up, and very high prices were rea101 lised. 101 101 102 103 105 106 102 THE arbitrators in the "EDMUNDS Scandal," 106 Court of Exchequer Chamber (Ireland)-Lodger franchise... 107 ESTATE AND INVESTMENT JOURNAL: 108 108 108 109 ...... 100 sum 108 THE last Overland Mail brought the report that MERCANTILE LAW.............. Yotes of New Decisions The Kerchant Shipping Bill. Sutes of New Decisions COUNTY COURTS:— Brecon County Court-Assignment of dower. 113 Bradford County Court 113 114 115 LORD LICHFIELD truly said, at an agricultural 114 meeting in Staffordshire, that any land law 114 adopted in Ireland must be extended to England. 114 He proposed a scheme of arbitration to determine the relative claims of landlord and tenant on the expiration of a tenancy. This is in itself 116 unobjectionable; but what is there to prevent its 117 voluntary adoption? In England, if there is a 117 lease, provision is made for such contingencies; if there is no lease, the custom of the country 119 prescribes that the tenant shall be paid for half 116 117 117 CHRISTMAS PRESENTS. We have received two letters on the custom of London agents sending Christmas presents to country attorneys, with a request that we will give the matter prominence. We do so willingly, and if the custom is a tax upon London agents, which they object to, we are sure that their country friends will co-operate with "Brother Chips," and waive their prescriptive rights without in the least degree impairing the good feeling which ought to subsist between the country solicitor and his town agent. The following are the letters: May we ask you to give prominence in this week's LAW TIMES to a suggestion we wish to make to our professional brethren in the country, with reference to the custom at present existing for London agents to send to each country correspondent a barrel of "natives." It has of late been really more of a pain than a pleasure to us to receive them, knowing as we do the high price now charged by the London shops for oysters; and we believe they are dearer than ever this year. We are recipents each year of several barrels, but we intend forthwith to request the several firms with whom we have the pleasure of doing business, not to send us any more while prices"rule so high." We hope country solici tors generally will do this, many have, we know, already done so, but agents may, we think, rely on the good feeling of their clients, and, whether asked or not, may discontinue the practice-for the present at any rate without (we hope) offending. BROTHER CHIPS. Dec. 8, 1869. It is, I suppose, among the things generally known that a custom prevails amongst most Lon33 at don agents, of sending a barrel of natives the "festive season "to their provincial clients. Why "natives" should be the medium for showing their generosity I am not aware, unless it has some connection with the old fable of the lawyer, who is portrayed swallowing the oyster himself and giving the shells to his clients. However, such is the custom, and a very expensive one it is to the unfortunate donor, especially if his business be extensive. Natives are now a guinea a barrel, therefore it is easy to reckon the cost to an agent Apart from the mere. with numerous clients. question of cost, I think it is generally admitted that London agencies have suffered severely by, the recent changes in the law, more especially those dependent on a Lancashire connection.. Surely, then, such a custom would be more honoured in the breach than the observance. I know there are many who think so, and who, like myself, have requested their agent to discontinue F. W. S. the practice. Chester, Dec. 8. THE WORKING OF THE NEW WE are glad to see that steps are being taken to direct aright the discretion of the LORD CHANCELLOR in apportioning the business under this Act. The Gloucestershire Law Society has taken up the matter; and the following letter and enclosure have been received by us from the MAYOR OF DONCASTER: Mansion House, Doncaster, Dec. 8, 1869. The Mayor of Doncaster presents his compliments to the editor of the LAW TIMES, and begs to express his entire approbation of the able article upon the workings of the new Bankruptcy Act. Being not a lawyer, but a trader, the mayor looks at the matter with a commercial eye; and rejoices to find his views so powerfully supported by an influential legal journal. The mayor ventures to enclose a copy of a letter he has himself addressed to the Lord Chancellor upon the subject. "Guildhall, Doncaster, 1st Dec. 1869. "My Lord,-On behalf of the mercantile classes of this town and neighbourhood, I trust your Lordship will excuse my appeal respecting the arrangements recently made for working the new Bankruptcy Act. "We had long felt here the trouble, expense, and inconvenience of travelling to and from the Bankruptcy Court at Sheffield-distant twenty miles-and we hailed the new Act with satisfaction, not only on account of its general provisions, but because it recognised the invaluable principle of bringing justice home to every man's door. "We were, indeed, aware of the section which empowered your Lordship to exclude any County Court from jurisdiction in bankruptcy. But possessing, as we did, a most excellent judge in the person of Mr. Wildman (brother-in-law of the Archbishop of Canterbury), and having besides a staff of County Court officials in every way satisfactory, we never, for a moment, thought that the Doncaster County Court would have been so ex cluded. "Your Lordship then may imagine our surprise and disappointment when we learnt that our district was to be attached to the Sheffield County Court; and that we were still to peregrinate there after bankruptcy business. "It is impossible, we think, that your Lordship can have been made acquainted with either our geographical or commercial position. The parish of Doncaster contained at the last census nearly 20,000; but from the rapidity with which it has since advanced, I am correct in stating that it now contains, at least, 25,000, while our County Court district does not contain less then 50,000, extending over an area of 300 square tax, is 207. for each such article, together with the amount of the tax thereon. If after the licence is issued other taxable articles, or more than the number of any for which a licence is taken out, should be kept, application must be forthwith made for an additional licence, under the like penalty. Some unconsidered consequences will result from this. Hitherto the assessed taxes have been controlled by commissioners, to whom appeals against charges for them were made, and who, if they had legal doubt on any point, stated a decided without argument. But now the form of case for the opinion of the Judges, which was proceeding for an omitted or disputed liability will be by an information for the penalty, heard by justices, and the many questions that continually arise as to legal liability under certain special circumstances, will be determined by magistrates, from whose decision the only form of appeal will be a case to be sent up to a Superior Court for formal argument and decision by the Judges, a proceeding that will be very costly, and compare most disadvantagiously with the present inexpensive process. It may, we hope, be presumed that at first the Government will exercise with great forbearance the power of imposing penalties for omission to make returns of taxable articles. The taxpayers will have a new system to learn, and they will not readily understand it, as is manifest from the many curious questions that have been sent to us about it. Those penalties are very heavy, and we cannot find that the magistrates have power to reduce them below one-fourth. Moreover it is expressly provided that the burden of proof that he does not keep the article in question is in such case to be upon the defendant. It may be as well to remind the reader who keeps a carriage, that there will be a difference in the amount of the tax on carriages weighing less than four cwt. Weight (and not wheels, or the size of the horse, or the use to which the carriage is put), will in future regulate the tax. MARITAL CRUELTY. can insure her own safety by lawful obedience and proper self-command, she has no right to come here, for this court affords its aid only when the necessity of its interference is absolutely proved." Everything turns upon what is to be considered safety, and it is now clear that loss of health is a loss of that safety of the faculties of the body which the court will protect. This is a nice consideration, and in Dysart v. Dysart, it was ruled that rudeness of language, austerity of temper, and petulance of manners, if they threatened bodily harm, amounted were, not that any bodily harm was threatened, to legal cruelty. In a Scotch case the facts by physical violence, but by much the same process as appears in Kelly v. Kelly. In Arthur v. Gourlay, 2 Paton's Scotch Rep. 184, it was proved that the husband disliked and shunned his wife, ceased to cohabit with her, refused to salute her, took her child away from her, and sent her her food by a common street porter. A separation was decreed. It would appear, therefore, not to be a new doctrine that systematic aversion and passive illtreatment of a like kind, if working detriment to the health, may give the court juristiction. But Kelly v. Kelly goes further than the cases we have named, at least in the principle stated, if not in the facts upon which the judgment was founded. For Lord Penzance says that it is almost inevitable that a man who determines to bend a wife to his will, and risks the happiness of her daily life in so doing, is prima facie in the position of one upon whom the law will fix legal cruelty. We do not believe that the Divorce Court is an institution from which proceeds unmixed good, but it has now brought one of its virtues to the standard of perfection in laying down a distinct doctrine regarding the limit to which domestic tyranny may go. Had the Divorce Court existed in its present form when Mr. Dombey made his wives miserable, we might have had a new and rich incident from the pen of Mr. Dickens. THE judgment delivered on Tuesday by Lord Penzance in the case of Kelly v. Kelly, can scarcely be over-estimated as to its importance from a social point of view. It is also of great novelty and interest from a legal point, for as far as we are aware there is no previous decision expressly on all fours with it. And it is the more important, legally speaking, because it recognises a doctrine "Moreover, our population is not swollen by which deserves the utmost recognition that can factory operatives, or by those employed in handi-be given to it, the doctrine, namely, that the craft, who, however formidable in number, are not systematic pursuit of a course of conduct, within the operation of bankruptcy. But by per- which, if not pursued systematically, is venial, her husband's orders. By these incidental miles. sons engaged in trade-creditors and debtorsdirectly interested in this important subject. "I venture, therefore, to submit these facts to your Lordship; in the hope that your Lordship will do us the justice of re-considering the contemplated arraagements, and of allowing bankruptcy business to be conducted in our County Court. "We feel sure that there great satisfaction would be given; and, if deemed desirable, we are equally certain that the inhabitants of the Thorne and Goole districts would gladly be attached to Doncaster, where there is convenient railway and other requisite accommodation. And I have the honour to be, my Lord, your Lordship's most faithful and obedient servant, "ARTHUR J. SMITH, "Mayor of Doncaster. "To the Right Honourable Baron Hatherley, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain.' Since writing the above, the mayor has inquired at the County Court Office here what business had been done during this year, and was informed there had been 2036 plaints and nearly twenty bankruptcies. THE ASSESSED TAXES OF THE THE collection of the assessed taxes in the coming January will be effected thus. The Board of Inland Revenue is to give notice of persons, places, and times where forms of declaration may be had, and where licences may be taken out. The taxpayer will be required to make a solemn declaration of all the taxable articles kept by him, and for each of such articles a licence will be granted to him. The penalty for omitting to make such declaration, or for making a false declaration, or for omitting Our readers may not, perhaps, have read the judgment of Lord Penzance, and we present, therefore, its conclusion, which to our mind provides an admirable definition of the present rights and liabilities of the conjugal state. "The law," he says, "no doubt recognises the husband as the ruler, protector, and guide of his wife; makes him master of her pecuniary resources; it gives him, within legal limits, the control of her person; it withdraws civil rights and remedies from her save in his name. Conversely, the law places on the husband the duty of maintaining his wife, relieves her from all responsibilities: and excuses her even in the commission of great crimes when acting under means it has fenced about and fostered the reasonable supremacy of man in the institution of marriage. In so doing it is thought by some that the law is acting in conformity with the dictates of nature and the natural characteristics of the sexes. Be that as it may, the subordination of the wife is doubtless in conformity with established habits and customs of mankind. With all these advantages then in his favour, the law leaves the husband, by his own conduct and bearing, to secure and retain in his wife the only submission which is fully rendered; and if he fail this court cannot worth having, that which is willingly and cheerrecognise his failure as a justification for a system of treatment by which he places his wife's Now what says Lord Penzance? At the permanent health in jeopardy, and sets at commencement of his judgment he said: "With- nought not only his own obligations in matri out disparaging the just and paramount autho-mony, but the very ends of matrimony itself, rity of a husband, it may be safely asserted that by rendering impossible the offices of domestic a wife is not a domestic slave, to be driven at intercourse and the mutual duties of married, all cost short of personal violence into compliance with her husband's demands. And if force, whether physical or moral, is systematically exerted for this purpose in such manner, to such a degree, and during such length of time as to break down her health and render serious malady imminent, the interference of the law cannot be justly withheld by any court which affects to have charge of the wife's personal safety. In cases of this kind everything depends on degree. Many acts which are venial in themselves become reprehensible when they take their places as parts of a system. Others, justifiable on occasions, lose their justification when continuously and purposely repeated." is within reach of the arm of the law. We have analogous cases in the nursing of omnibuses, the abuse of trades unionism, and proceedings at contested elections. Such an objection has the law to this method of influencing the minds of persons, that in the first-named case it has given damages to a pro. prietor who might have been beaten by fair competition; in the second case a lawful means of promoting the objects of a strike when carried to excess, and made a cause of alarm and terror, was declared criminally punishable, and in the last-named cases it has been stated over and over again that where practices which per se are innocent, are carried on systematically, the election must be void. life." THE LAND COURT SCHEME. SUPPOSE the preliminary difficulties of compe tent Judges, ambulatory courts, and surveyors and other necessary officers in whom both the parties concerned will place a tolerable amount of confidence, and a provision for the unavoid able cost of such a multitude of tribunals to be satisfactorily provided for, there comes the next difficulty-in what manner is it to discharge its functions. In the first place it must be distinctly borne formalities as well as the powers of a court. of pleads His Lordship adopted as his leading principle that which was laid down in Dysart v. Dysart, ings, that is to say, a claim, or a complaint in to take a licence for any article that is liable to 11 Jurist, where the court said. "If a wife writing, a sufficient notice given to the other party or parties; all concerned must be entitled =0 a hearing, and they must be permitted to appear by counsel or attorney, for innumerable and very delicate legal questions must continually crop up, and for these an appeal must be allowed to a Superior Court. Take as an instance, hat would be the case at this moment if such tribunal were existing here in England for the purpose of settling the terms of contracts beween landlord and tenant. The estates of the FICHBORNE baronetcy are in dispute, there being wo claimants. The tenant of one of these states desiring a long lease, applies to the court O direct that the landlord shall give it to him. But before it can do this it must determine who is the landlord, and for that purpose it must hear and decide the entire question between the disutants, which is the real heir. So likewise there are reserved in settlements a vast number of arying and doubtful leasing powers. The Land Court must determine all such questions before t can direct that a lease be granted, unless, inleed, the law should divest the owners of land of 11 power to demise it, and transfer such power the court-an invasion of the rights of proroperty and of individual liberty which is not ikely to be sanctioned until we have a Red Republic and Socalism carrying out its famous aaxim that "property is robbery." Let us imagine the procedure of such a court. 3. is tenant to C. from year to year. He decrees lease, and objects to the terms proposed by his andlord. He makes complaint to the Land Court that a lease is refused to him, and prays hat the court will order the landlord to grant it n such terms as the court may determine. A ay is appointed for hearing, and notice of the laim is to be served on the landlord. Difficult questions must continually arise as to who is the andlord, but suppose that these are avoided by ermitting service to be upon the person who eceives the rent, assuming him to be either the andlord or his authorised agent. On the apointed day the parties appear-commonly it will De by counsel or attorney, and arguments will be heard in support of or opposition to the claim. The landlord must, of course, be permitted to tate the reasons that induce him to refuse a ease to the applicant, or to insist upon coveants to which the applicant objects, such as for ultivation, or manuring, or repairs, of which andlords and tenants usually take different views, the tenant desiring the utmost freedom o get all he can out of the land without caring or those who are to come after him, and the andlord, anxious to prevent the tenant from acking the soil, and rendering it more than worthless. But the objections raised by the andlords are such as will certainly be disputed y the tenant-he is a bad farmer, or he is a bad neighbour, or idle, or drunken, and does not ustice to the land. The court cannot, of course, accept the statements of the parties as to these illegations, and the facts must be inquired into -that is to say, it must hear evidence. A further day must be appointed for that purpose, and then there will be another attendance of the lawyers, and in the end the court determines that it is a case on which it ought to order a compulsory lease. This is only preliminary to the actual office of the courts. The next step must be to direct a survey of the estate by a competent surveyor, to determine what is its condition, what requires to be done in the way of improvement, as draining, fencing, buildings, and such like, and by whom they are to be done, and within what time; for all these are items in estimating the rental. The surveyor having made his report, both parties must be heard against it; the landlord may dispute the proposed rent, or assert that he is not sufficiently protected; the tenant may declare the rent too high, or the covenants too stringent; and, after the hearing, the court must decide between them. It grants the lease on what it deems to be equitable terms. The landlord is bound by their decision, for his land cannot run away; but practically the tenant is not so. If he does not like the terms settled by the court, he can refuse to take it; and even if he takes it he can rid himself of it whenever he pleases, for he has but to sell off, and the land being vacated, and the tenant a pauper, the landlord has nothing for it but to receive his estate back, probably much diminished in value by the operations of a reluctant tenant. Whatever the result, the Landlord gets the worst of it. But what about the costs? Let the scale be THE LAW TIMES. as moderate as possible, the total sum must be great. Counsel, attorneys, and land surveyors must be paid liberally. Who is to bear this burden? If the estate is small the expense of procuring the lease will largely exceed its value when procured. Is the burden to be put upon the landlord? It would be intolerably unjust to impose upon him the expenses of a law enacted in acknowledged violation of the liberty of contracts and of the rights of property as hitherto recognised by all civilised communities. But the tenant could not bear them. Say that each is made to pay his own costs, and that the country pays the expenses of the court and of the land surveyor. Thus there would be a treble injustice. The landlord would be wronged by being compulsorily put to costs; the tenant wronged by being taxed for a privilege the law has given to him, and the taxpayers wronged by being taxed to pay the expenses of a dispute between two private citizens. any scheme of a Land Court. But there are Such are some of the difficulties inherent in other objections that will well deserve consideration. If The precedent will be very dangerous. interfere to dictate the terms of a contract once it be admitted that the law may rightly to set a limit to the application of the principle. between individual subjects, it will be impossible It will be at once a recognition of the justice of the demand of the trades-unions, that the law shall regulate wages. Debtors may with equal justice call upon Parliament to direct the conditions of loans, to extend existing mortgages to long terms at fixed rates of interest, to protect debtors from payment of their debts save at small instalments at distant dates; in fact, it is to concede by a solemn Act the principle of Socialism. project such overwhelming objections, for at the WE deem it as essential to the true interest of THE TRUE INTEREST OF LAWYERS. the Profession as of the commercial world, to direct attention to the money article of the Times of last Saturday. We find there a letter introduced the tone and suggestions of which reveal the existence of a condition of things which must be extremely injurious to all healthy trade, and consequently most damaging to the permanent interest of the legal profession. We are is the best business going. This single fact will told that at present amalgamating companies show how utterly rotten is the basis upon which legal business rests, and a principal object must be to discourage speculative trading on insufficient capital, and that disregard of moral considerations which puts a gloss upon unsound schemes. it is introduced by the City editor with some To turn to the letter to which we have alluded, observations which are appalling in their boldness, when it is remembered that they have gone uncontradicted. He writes: traders are paralysed by the cheating confederacies that surround them on every side. "At present honest False advertisements, false brands, bribes in the shape of commissions, and all the other organised devices that from helpless toleration have now almost obtained the sanction of custom, prevent in commercial life the success of new men who would seek a course of rectitude; while in financial circles, when the concoction of impostures is temporarily impracticable, hosts of persons are found shamelessly to boast of participation in conspiracies to wreck the very concerns they were once influential in starting, or to alarm the stockholders of railway or other undertakings in which, from the sensitiveness of the times, they multitude who compose these classes are mostly may see a chance of speculative gain. The 103 known, but so long as they prosper pecuniarily and can escape any social ban they may carry everything before them. The law of libel is their protection, and to a certain extent properly so, since it would not do to allow definite expression to be given to that general sense of their acts which is a condemnation more true than any other that could be found, but which yet could not be sustained within the technicalities of the law." stamp are encouraged and supported by an equally disreputable class of attorneys. This Now it cannot be denied that persons of this class is as well known as are the dishonest brethren. The same means therefore should be resorted to for the purpose of stamping them traders that is well known to their professional with the distinguishing mark of their practices, so that the public in general may know with whom they have to deal. It is hardly sufficient Incorporated Law Society. Not one-half of the that there should be such an institution as the public do not know who are members and who solicitors in the kingdon belong to it, and the are not. Reputation, we know, goes a great unfair dealing. But so it is in the City among duals above even the remotest suspicion of way. There are very many firms and indiviproposed, and for the very purpose of preventing mercantile men, and yet a guild of honour is any confusion between honest and dishonest traders. his letter with these remarks, the truth of which is beyond dispute. He says:-"What with the The writer of the letter to the Times begins deceptions put forth under the pretence of limited liability, the panic which has depreciated all property but bullion, the collapse of insurance offices, the laws relative to bankfailures in the face of the new Act, the mercantations to dishonesty, and now a succession of ruptcy and composition deeds, with their temptile interest has gone through and is still passing a period of severe trial without conterpart in history. Our honour has come down, our credit fallen at home and abroad." mediate operation of the new law of Bankruptcy and proposes, in order at once to stem the He refuses to place any reliance upon the imtorrent of malpractices which is disgracing by Royal Charter an association under the title British commerce that there should be instituted of "The Honourable Institute of Commerce," that it should be composed of gentlemen whose reputation is intact and of at least seven years' standing, who shall be entitled by such charter to affix the letters of diploma to their names; and that it become a Chamber of Commerce for the settlement of trade questions. laws which will not only enable its members to graduate at home, but will protect most practically their interests abroad. Reputation, he adds, is confidence, and confidence is the life of trade. The writer states that he has framed a code of steady and lucrative business resulting from a sound condition of the trade of the country is It is hardly necessary to point out that the far to be preferred to large irregular gains acmercantile affairs. Nothing can be more paltry, quired at the expense of honour and credit in or more calculated to make us feel ashamed of ourselves than the class of cases which has been tried during the after term sittings at Westminster. Many of them have been miserable speculative actions against railway companies, lating to assaults or slander, which have had an ignominously. Others have been matters remost of which, we are glad to say, have failed equally disreputable termination. On the whole it may be fairly said that legal business has sarily so. Let our profession aid those who would re-establish the confidence of trade, and fallen as low as city credit. And this necesthat profession will be benefited in just the same proportion. CASES are constantly arising in which the courts of our own and other countries have to consider JURISDICTION OVER FOREIGNERS. their power to deal with the suits of persons who are not citizens of the states in which the court is situated. On broad principles jurisdiction is generally exercised in such cases; and we propose to see as nearly as may be under what circumstances doubts may be entertained ject. as to the view which will be taken on the sub An admiralty case sent to us by our reporter in the United States was published by us last week, and there objection was raised to the jurisdiction, the suit being between foreigners. The judge, noticing this objection, said, "the ground urged why this court should not exercise jurisdiction in this case is, that although it may have power to hear and determine this suit, it will regard the circumstances of the case as rendering it unfit that it should hear and determine it because the libellant and the claimants are not citizens of the United States, and the colliding vessels are both of them "foreign:" (The Steamship Russia, 21 L. T. Rep. N. S. at p. 441.) His reply to this was that the principles upon which the court proceeds in determining in any case whether to exercise such jurisdiction or not is to inquire whether the rights of the parties will best be promoted by retaining and disposing of the case, or by remitting it to a foreign tribunal. The principles upon which the Home court acts in restraining parties from submitting to a foreign jurisdiction were stated by the Vice-Chancellor of England in the London and Mediterranean Bank v. Strutton reported last week (21, L. T. Rep. N. S. 415). It is well established" he said "that this court will never interfere with the administration of justice in another court, except upon a case properly made out, and only then by directing its decree, not against the court itself, but against the litigants, upon whose consciences it is intended to operate, and whom it prevents from making an inequitable use of their legal rights." It will be seen that the views taken by the United States Court and by the Vice-Chancellor are virtually the same. The former says that it has jurisdiction over foreigners where the justice of the case demands that the jurisdiction should be exercised. The Vice-Chancellor says that he cannot restrain the proceedings of a foreign court so long as the justice of the case is being promoted, or in other words, so long as the parties are not "making an inequitable use of their legal rights." Before proceeding further, we will see what the facts in each of these cases were. In that of the steamship Russia, the ships colliding were respectively Austrian and British owned. The collision took place in the harbour of New York, and the Russia was arrested within the jurisdiction of the New York court. There was no question arising under the local laws either of Great Britain or of Austria, and this, added to the fact that part of the cargo on board the ship of the libellants belonged to citizens of the United States, induced the court to regard the case as one in which it was eminently proper and conducive to justice that it should exercise the jurisdiction invoked by the libellants. The case before the Vice-Chancellor was a bill filed by the liquidator of a bank to recover possession of certain bills of exchange which were the subject of litigation in America, or to obtain a perpetual injunction to restrain the holder from dealing with them in any way to the prejudice of the bank. The liquidator averred that the bills had been obtained by one of the defendants whilst acting as the bank's agent in America. To this the Vice-Chancellor replied that if the agent of the bank in that country had failed in his duties, as such, it was in that country that prima facie he ought to be called to account. This brings us to the difficult aud confused ceedings in rem and proceedings in personam. as to lead to the expectation that there will be much difficulty in the future in determining, first, the nature of a foreign judgment, and secondly, the effect of it. For further guidance, indeed, there can be no better reading than the judgment of Baron Bramwell in the Exchequer Chamber in Castrique v. Imrie, at P. 149 of 4 L. T. Rep. N. S. He evinced a decided disposition to hold that whether a judg ment were called in rem, or in personam, it was immaterial so long as the judgment was given bona fide in accordance with the law of the foreign country. He adopted the principle laid down by the Lord Chief Baron in Cammell v. Sewell, 29 La J. at p. 744, that "if personal property is disposed of in a manner binding according to the law of the country where it is, that disposition is binding everywhere." That is to say, whether the proceedings are against a person with the view of enforcing the judgment against a chattel, or against the chattel itself, it is equally a disposition of personal property and the judg ment ought to have all the effect of a judgment strictly in rem. This way of looking at the matter removes many of the cobwebs which have so long clung about it. THE WINE AND BEERHOUSE ACT 1869. THIS is a most important statute, and every decision upon it should be at once brought to ult. the Queen's Bench had before it the conthe knowledge of the Profession. On the 25th sideration of the 7th section, which enacts that "Every person intending to apply to the justices for a certificate under this Act shall, twenty-one days at least before he applies, give notice in writing of his intention to one of the overseers of the parish, and to some constable acting within the parish under a process analogous to our fieri facias. tion." Then the Vice-Chancellor referred to the Wine and Beerhouse Act 1869, which was refused on the ground that he had, five years ago, forfeited a license on the account of misconduct. Drake then became occupier of the house, and tention to apply to the adjourned general annual on the 25th of August gave notice of his inthis notice was served upon the overseers of the licensing meeting for a certificate. A copy of poor and constable, as directed by sect. 7, and also twenty-eight days before that day, a twenty-one days before the 17th of September, copy of the notice was affixed to the door of the house and of the church. At the adjourned annual licensing meeting on the 17th of September, the certificate was refused, Drake appealed to the Quarter Sessions, but they declined to hear the question regarding the distinction between pro- might, after judgment obtained against the appeal on the ground that the notice of the 25th of August, of an intention to apply to the In the notes to the Duchess of Kingston's case, at master, be converted into a suit against the ship adjourned annual licensing meeting was insuffialone, and that the tribunal having condemned p. 662 of 2 Sm. Leading Cases, 5th edit., it is laid the master in his character as such, and also the cient, and that the notice must be given twentydown, on the authority of familiar cases, that a one days before the day appointed for the general judgment in rem concludes all persons from say- against the master were dropped. But ship by way of maritime lien, all further pro- annual licensing meeting. lug that the status of the thing adjudicated upon cedings Chief Justice was not satisfied to rest count of quarter Sessions was wrong. In giving was not such as declared by the adjudication, there without further argument with himself. ulguent Mr. Justice Blackburn traced the The Court of Queen's Bench held that the and this although the court which so adjudicates He admitted that a judgment of the court de-story of the law. We shall publish a rehate is not a court of exclusive jurisdiction. A judgment in personam operates as an estoppel creeing simply the sale of a particular chattel to between the parties and their privies. But there satisfy a money demand hardly falls within the of the case next week, but being of immediate may be a difficulty, as in Simpson v. Fogo, 8 L. T. strict definition of a judgment in rem, inasmuch importance, we give this portion of the decision Rep. N. S. 61, in deciding whether a judgment is chattel with reference to the property, or vest as it does not determine the status of the of the court in this place. inter partes. That was a suit instituted by mortgagees of a ship, and the ship being navigated that property at once in the claimant. But he as usual by the mortgagors, was attached abroad added, "it is strictly analogous to the sentence by one of their creditors. The creditor directed of the Court of Admiralty on a claim for salvage, the sheriff to sell, but in the mean time the or in a suit upon a bottomry bond, in both of mortgagees had sent out their agent to take which latter suits a money demand exists, of possession of the ship, who intervened and which the court adjudicates, and to satisfy claimed the ship on a petition of inter- which it decrees the sale of the ship.'" This took place in Louisiana, and Having thus regarded the recent expressions the court, having heard the agent, declined of judicial opinion, we cannot see that there is to recognise any title in him, and sold the ship so large a difference in the minds of the judges vention. with the ptly "The original Licensing Act (9 Geo. 4, c. 61)" sent one (a mode of legislation which frequently operates to make persons say what they don't mean), and provides that there shall be a meeting held by the Justices on some day between the 20th Aug. and the 14th Sept. Then comes of which this case depends in my mind, and for the Jins tices acting at the general annual licensing meeting, and they are hereby required to con tinue such meeting by adjournment to such day chie to abstain for the future from using in his RITUALISM BEFORE THE PRIVY Is the case of Martin v. Mackonochie in the Privy prayer of consecration. The Judicial Committee last Saturday decided that Mr. Mackonochie had been guilty of disthedience to the monition in respect to the charge of kneeling, and condemned him to pay the costs of the motion. Mr. Mackonochie insited that the monition must be construed strictly, and that he had complied with the etter of the monition, and that mere non-compliance with the spirit of it could not make him able to the present charge. Mr. Mackonochie's argument was very much that of a defendant charged with breach of a Chancery injunction or of a criminal statute. The validity of the yament in the present case was fully admitted by the Lord Chancellor in delivering the judgment of the Judicial Committee. "A literal Compliance with the terms of the monition was," he said, "all that is required." We propose ere to consider the application of this rule by the Judicial Committee, and for that purpose to take the charges seriatim. (1.) As to the lighted candles on the Commution Table, the monition warned Mr. Mackono monition. The affidavits to support the charge of dis- (3.) Kneeling or prostration during the prayer respondent to abstain from "kneeling or pros- of consecration. As to this, the decision of the |