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CURRENT TOPICS.

LONDON, JANUARY 21, 1882.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR heard on Wednesday an opposed application for transfer of a cause in the Chancery Division. We are glad to learn that the statements which have appeared as to his lordship's good health are fully justified.

WE BELIEVE it is intended to introduce into the Bankruptcy Bill of the forthcoming session a provision for meeting the difficulties which have arisen in the working of section 10 of the Judicature Act, 1875, which applies to the administration of an insolvent estate, and the winding up of an insolvent company, the rules which may be in force for the time being under the law of bankruptcy with respect to the estates of persons adjudged bank

rupt.

WE UNDERSTAND that the question of the charge for writing in the Chancery Registrar's office, which was raised by Mr. FOWLER in the House of Commons last session, has been taken up by the Treasury, and now forms the subject of discussion. The profession is concerned in the matter, because if the charge for transcribing drafts and orders should be disallowed, and this work has to be done by the assistant clerks to the registrars, it will be impossible that the business of the office can be transacted without grievous delay. It is well known that the assistant clerks are at present fully occupied all day in taking in and giving out papers, in noting these circumstances in their books, and in filling up forms of simple orders.

MR. JUSTICE NORTH announced at Reading last week that the practice followed by some counsel in defending prisoners in stating facts in their behalf without proving them by evidence had lately been under the consideration of the judges, and they had agreed that the practice ought not to be encouraged, and that counsel should not be allowed to make statements which could not be proved by competent witnesses." The present time, when the public mind has been strongly impressed with the unjust conviction in the Staffordshire case, is not a very happy occasion for the promulgation of a rule tending to shut out the prisoner's version of the facts. The result of the rule will be to give a prisoner the choice of two alternatives. Either he must lose the benefit of counsel's services and defend himself, in which case he cannot practically be prevented from laying his story before the jury; or he must lose the benefit of bringing his version of the facts before the jury, and obtain the advantage of counsel. This does not seem to be a very reasonable state of things.

WE BELIEVE that no member of the profession will hear without regret of the death of Sir RICHARD MALINS. In spite of his judicial peculiarities he was very popular, because he was always indefatigable in the performance of his duty, and ever anxious for the furtherance of justice, and (except when one of the periodical storms perturbed his court) he was urbane and courteous in a high degree. If he did not observe Lord BACON's injunction to Mr. Justice HUTTON, to "let his speech be with gravity, as one of the sages of the law, and not be talkative, nor with impertinent flying out," he was not without judicial comrades in this delinquency, although we must confess that in point of degree he was probably unrivalled. A story was current some years ago at the equity

bar, that upon the expiration of an "argument" of about forty-five minutes' duration in his court, a paper was handed by a bystander to the counsel who had just sat down, containing these words" You were interrupted ninety-four times by the judge, and forty-six times by your opponent." Probably this was an exaggeration, but it represented the too general course of proceedings. Sir R. MALINS was a learned lawyer, and many of his judgments contain excellent expositions of different branches_of real property law. His judgment in Oakes' case (L. R. 3 Eq. 576) was a good example of his capacity for dealing with complicated and keenly-fought cases, and it will be remembered that in Lyons v. Fishmongers' Company (25 W. R. 165) the House of Lords upheld his decision, although it had been reversed by the Lords Justices.

WE PRINT ELSEWHERE a letter from a correspondent, who is a witness of high authority upon the question, confirming our impression that the feeling among the profession generally is decidedly adverse to permitting the provisions of section 18 of the Conveyancing Act to apply to mortgages. We more than doubt whether the pleading of our distinguished correspondent will avail to remove this adverse feeling. Retaining our opinion that the section ought to be excluded in the interests of the mortgagee, and that therefore (the mortgagee being the stronger party to the debate) it is likely to be excluded in most, if not all, cases, we must impress upon the notice of our readers the conditions under which it can be excluded. The words of section 13 are:-"This section applies only if, and as far as, a contrary intention is expressed by the mortgagor and mortgagee in the mortgage deed, or otherwise in writing." The words in italics make it advisable (notwithstanding some more general expressions which occur later on) that the mortgagee should execute the mortgage deed when he desires to exclude the operation of section 18. And here we will take occasion to remark something which is often forgotten, and which seems not to have been fully kept in mind by our distinguished correspondent when he wrote the letter to which we have referred. People seem to forget that the safety which a mortgagee is entitled to demand is not merely the certainty that the courts will, if necessary, decide in his favour; it is the certainty that his rights are too clear ever to be questioned or brought into litigation. Certainty of the latter sort is what a mortgagee expects his solicitor to obtain for him, and our readers do not need to be told that it is quite useless to plead section 66 of the Act in the private court of an enraged client. But this kind of certainty can hardly be attained by relying upon an Act which is a never-failing storehouse of moots.

"WHY HAS MY DECISION in Jones v. Smith not been reported?" a certain learned judge of the Court of Chancery used to ask, focussing his eye-glass sternly on the delinquent reporter. Perhaps the remark may to some extent explain the extraordinary prevalence of law reporting, of which a curious view is given in probably the most complete piece of legal bibliography which has yet appeared-Messrs. SWEET and NICHOLSON'S Catalogue of Modern Law Books. It would really appear that wherever there are English-speaking judges there are law reports prepared and published somehow or other.

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If

Greenland's icy mountains" do not furnish any reports, “India's coral strand" has provided no fewer than fifty-six series of reports, ranging from 1774 to the present time. Many of these extend over a long period. The "Select Reports" of the Sudder Courts, for instance, commenced in 1798 and continued till 1848; and the Sudder Nizamut Adawlut Reports began in 1805 and extended to 1850. Australia contributes thirteen series of reports

and New Zealand six. The Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, Jamaica,
and Mauritius have their reports; and even the Sandwich Islands
boast of three series of law reports, comprised in three volumes,
The last volume is stated to be "by the justices," which reminds
us of the pathetic narrative we once heard from a colonial judge of
the labour he and his colleagues underwent in reporting their own
decisions, which were issued under the name of a member of their
bar, who certainly deserved the title which a learned judge of the
Court of Appeal is fond of bestowing on reporters in general
"the hypothetically learned reporter." The name of the
American reports is, of course, legion. The list of them covers
about eighteen pages of the catalogue, and increases the wonder
we have always felt as to how buyers are found for such a multi-
tude of volumes.

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THE PROMPTITUDE of the Home Office in releasing JOHNSON and CLOWES is much to be commended, but it is plain that the question of granting them some pecuniary compensation out of the public funds will also have to be considered. The cases of BARBER, HABRON, and GALLEY show that there is sufficient precedent for such a grant, which will have to appear on the votes as a special item. But even if compensation is granted, the results of the sentence will not be wholly removed. A pardon is a mere act of grace, which leaves the judgment unreversed. There should be some proceeding whereby this record of guilt is done away with. It is stated (see Wharton's Lexicon, tit. Pardon) that Sir FREDERICK POLLOCK when Attorney-General, proposed that when the Crown pardons anyone adjudged guilty, on the ground that the evidence, rightly viewed, does not warrant the judgment, the convict should assign, and the Attorney-General should confess, error on the record, whereby the judgment would be reversed, and there would remain no record of guilt. Some formal evidence of the pardon seems necessary for the purpose of reinstating the pardoned convict in the enjoyment of the franchises of which his conviction deprives him, for by 33 & 34 Vict. c. 23, s. 2, the convicted felon shall become, and until he shall have suffered the punishment to which he had been sentenced or shall receive a free pardon from her Majesty, shall continue, thenceforth incapable of holding any military or naval office, or any civil office under the Crown, or other public employment or any ecclesiastical benefice, or of being elected or sitting or voting, as a member of either House of Parliament, or of exercising any right of suffrage or other parliamentary or municipal franchise whatever within England, Wales, or Ireland." The same statute provides for the complete determination, unless the convict shall receive a free pardon within two months after conviction, or before the filling up of the office, of all emoluments whatever derived from any public office; but not a word is said as to compensation in case of pardon after the filling up of the office; for such compensation is entirely outside the law, which refuses to admit the possibility of a mistaken conviction. Even the case of an innocent convict being condemned to pay the costs of the prosecution is left unprovided for. As the law now stands, such costs are wholly irrecoverable, unless there be a private prosecutor, and the prosecution be malicious.

THE FOLLOWING is a list of the new Queen's Counsel, with their respective years of call to the bar. Four members of the Chancery bar-viz., Mr. F. W. E. EVERITT, 1855; Mr. WILLIAM BARBER, 1862; Mr. H. H. COZENS-HARDY, 1862; and Mr. H. A. GIFFARD, 1865. One member of the Parliamentary bar-viz., Mr. PEMBROKE S. STEPHENS, 1862. Two members of the Northern Circuit-viz., Mr. P. A. MYBURGH, 1862; and Mr. C. CROMPTON, 1864. Two members of the South-Eastern Circuitviz., Mr. J. A. MCLEOD, 1863; and Mr. R. B. FINLAY, 1867. One member of the Western Circuit-viz., Mr. J. F. NORRIS, 1865. And one member of the South Wales Circuit-viz, Mr. W. BOWEN ROWLANDS, 1871.

Messrs, William Clowes & Sons (Limited), will shortly publish a work by Mr. Serjeant Pulling, entitled, "The Order of the Coif," embracing the bistory of the old order of judges and serjeants-at-law, and the very wide range of interesting matter with which the subject is identified. It will have illustrative engravings and woodcuts.

AUTHORITY TO PAY PURCHASE-MONEY.
“A PURCHASER," said Vice-Chancellor Kindersley in Viney v.
Chaplin (6 W. R. 302, 4 Drew. 237), "has a right to pay his
money to the vendor personally; it was the simple and natural
right, and required no case or authority to support it. Even in
a payment under a power of attorney or written authority there
was a risk. If the vendor died, and his executors found no
account of the money, they might bring an action for it, and the
purchaser would then have to prove his authority to pay to the
attorney.
A creditor had no right to insist that the
money should be paid to his attorney or to anyone else." In
Ex parte Swinbanks, In re Shanks (27 W. R. 898, L. R. 11 Ch.
D. 525), Lord Justice Brett characterized this as "a most
wholesome decision." "It would have been most dangerous,"
he said, "if it had been decided otherwise. That decision is
binding upon us, and was, in my opinion, a most righteous
decision." And in the latter case the court held that the mere
fact that a solicitor is in possession of a mortgage deed executed
by his client, does not authorize him to receive the mortgage
money for the client. If the client does not receive the money,
the mortgagee cannot maintain the validity of the mortgage
deed by showing that he paid the money to the solicitor unless
he can show that the solicitor was expressly authorized by the client

to receive it.

As most practitioners are aware, this rule has been altered by section 56 of the Conveyancing Act, which where consideration is to be paid or provides, as to cases "where a given after the commencement of the Act, that solicitor produces a deed, having in the body thereof or indorsed thereon a receipt for consideration money or other consideration, the deed being executed, or the indorsed receipt being signed, by the person entitled to give a receipt for that consideration, the deed shall be sufficient authority to the person liable to pay or give the same for his paying or giving the same to the solicitor, without the solicitor producing any separate or other direction or authority in that behalf from the person who executed or signed the deed or receipt."

An authority to receive purchase-money is, therefore, to be implied on certain conditions being fulfilled. The first of these conditions is that the person producing the deed must be a solicitor. This requirement is reasonable and proper, but it must be remembered that it renders it incumbent on the purchaser's solicitor who comes to complete to see that the person producing the deed is not an unadmitted managing clerk or cashier, persons who, we believe, in certain large offices, have been in the habit of completing purchases. The section does not require the person producing the deed to be the solicitor of the vendor; payment to any, solicitor producing the executed deed containing, or having upon it, a proper receipt, will, according to the language of the section, suffice. The reason of this is obvious. If the section had enacted that the solicitor producing the deed must be the solicitor of the vendor, it would have been tantamount to rendering the provision nugatory, for, of course, it would be necessary to have proof at the time of payment that the solicitor was then the solicitor of the vendor, and so a document similar to an authority would still be necessary.

A matter more likely to be overlooked is the mode of payment which must apparently be adopted in order to obtain the benefit of the new enactment. The provision is that "where a solicitor produces a deed, having a receipt for consideration money, the deed shall be sufficient authority to the person liable to pay the same, for his paying the same [i.e., the consideration money] to the solicitor." In other words, the production of the deed is to be an authority for the payment of money. It will not be safe to assume, until the point has been decided, that a banker's draft or a cheque will be considered as "money" within the section. And, indeed, it can hardly be supposed that the Legislature intended to confer on the purchaser authority to pay in any kind of draft or cheque the vendor's solicitor may think fit to accept. It would seem that, for the present at all events, it will be prudent in all cases where the authority conferred by section 56 is relied on, that payment of the purchase-money should be made in bank

notes.

EGYPTIAN CONVEYANCING.

THE Times has recently published abridged translations of certain legal documents, which, according to our contemporary's view, throw quite a flood of light on the state of Egyptian society during the five centuries immediately preceding the Christian æra (see two articles in the Times, published on December 24, 1881, and January 9, 1882). As no lawyer can read these documents without great interest, and as, in our opinion, no lawyer can read them carefully without coming to grave doubts as to the correctness of the conclusions which the writer in the Times very confidently draws from them, we hope to be pardoned for going a little out of the beaten track of an English legal paper, both by those of our readers who have not yet seen the articles in question, and also by those who have read them, but who, in the press of business, may have taken for granted the correctness of the conclusions drawn from the documents in question.

To summarize very briefly the documents, from which a few only have been selected for translation by the writer in the Times, we may say that they consist of papyri written in the Demotic or later handwriting of the Egyptians, and covering a period of about 500 years, beginning with the reign of Darius I. and ending about the time of the Roman Conquest. They comprise deeds of sale, transfer, gift, partnership, and endowment, leases of houses and lands, bonds, mortgages, receipts for taxes and other payments, marriage contracts, marriage settlements, title deeds, inventories, &c. The world is indebted for its newly acquired knowledge of these documents chiefly to M. Revillout, who, during the last few years, has examined the chief European collections of Demotic papyri and analysed and translated into French some thousands of them. The English versions given in the Times are taken from these French translations; and we must assume that the few specimens given to us are fair samples of the documents at large. At any rate, they are offered as forming the grounds of the conclusions arrived at; and though these conclusions are, in words, made to extend to the whole of the Egyptian society of the time, it is only fair to add that the reader is informed that the legal documents nearly all come from a single source, and that they invariably concern the professional and private affairs of several generations of a class of Theban Cheachytes, a subordinate class of custodian priests who were attached to the Theban Necropolis, and who appear to have been in the habit of adding to their priestly functions the mundane occupation of money-lenders. It is evident, therefore, at starting that it will be necessary to keep constantly in view this limitation of what may be called the area of the papyri.

The legal documents are divided into two classes-namely, transactions relating to the living and transactions relating to the dead. Of the former, specimens are given to us of mortgages or bills of sale, and of marriage contracts or settlements. We give here two mortgages which cannot fail to interest our readers, fresh as they all are from a perusal of the statutory forms in the new Conveyancing Act. It must not, however, be assumed that the originals are as brief and concise as the following transcripts of them. They have been abbreviated in the translation, and "much that is purely formal" has been omitted. If we may judge from "the receipt clause," which we can hardly imagine to have suffered much abbreviation or omission, the abbreviations in the rest of the documents must be very considerable. No prototype of Lord Cairns appears to have cut down the tautologies of our Egyptian predecessors, who seem to be still in that stage of conveyancing through which it appears to be necessary that all legal drafting should pass-the stage in which, in order to avoid all doubt and question, the lawyer slays his dead three times, and nine times drags him round the city." But let our readers judge for themselves as to the style of the draftsmanship :—

"1. (Date, the fifth year of Cleopatra-Circe and second year of PtolemyAlexander, her son). The receiver of taxes upon stuff's, Thoth, son of Amenhotep, whose mother is Tanoum, to the Pastophorus of Amen-Api of the Necropolis of Djem, Neckhtmontb, son of Horus, whose mother is Chachperi, Baith:-For the wheat thou hast lent to me, thou hast to reclaim from me nine aureus, interest included. I engage to pay thee thy nine aureus abovehamed in pure unground wheat (value of the said money) paid back, carried, and delivered into the hands of thy servants in thy house at Djem, without cost or outlay, on the 30th day of the month Pakhons. And I

may pay thee no part of the above-named until the 9th Pakhons at the time and day herein appointed. I may not say to thee, I have already deposited wheat with thee,' or 'I have made thee a payment on account of thy wheat.' There is no redemption [of the debt] except according to this deed, the legal consequences of which rest upon me and upon my children. The whole of my goods which I now posses, and all such as may hereafter become mine, are pledged to thee as security for thy nine aureus; and if I fail to act conformably to this writing, the whole penalty will be due, and I must cede to thee without opposition or delay all that which is herein pledged." omitted) five argentei, making one outen of silver. 2. (Date, the 15th year of Euergetes I.) Thou hast lent to me (names I have received this money from thy hand. The sum is complete, leaving no balance outstanding. My heart is satisfied.

At the time thou hast fixed for thy five argenteus which thou hast lent, I will repay them. I have thirty days of credit before the time for repayment. I will give thee, less the interest, thy five argenteus, making one outen, the day after the 30th day above - named, not counting costs or interest, and that without delay. This bond provides for no other redemption of the debt. The above legal writing is in thy hand, for thy five argenteus, and the costs and interest thereunto accruing. It rests upon me and my children. All the goods I possess, or may in future possess, are mortgaged to thee in security for thy argenteus, and the costs and interest thereunto accruing. against me any means of coercion in respect of that which is here written, and Thy servants may employ that without opposition on my part."

hazardous.

Now, from these and other documents of a like kind, one of them being a mortgage "whereby, for the miserable consideration of fifty sekels (ie., about £1 15s.), a father signed away in pledge, not only the inheritance, but the personal liberty of his children," the writer in the Times comes to the conclusion that "repayment was rigidly enforced on a fixed day, before which the creditor would accept no instalments, and after which, though it were a delay of only twenty-four hours, the unhappy debtor became liable to a fine equivalent to his utter ruin." It needs, however, very little consideration to see that this conclusion is very Suppose, for instance, that a couple of thousand years hence a few English mortgages and bills of sale should be unearthed by a people who knew next to nothing of the manners and customs of our country, what a picture of oppressive dealing the documents would give them Take even a mortgage in the form given in the new Act-an absolute conveyance with a proviso for redemption on full payment at a fixed time; and suppose that along with it, as might very well happen, a deed were found showing the value of the mortgaged property to be twice as great as the mortgage debt, what a picture of hardness and oppression this would give the future student. And what a picture of extortion, rapine, and violence a stringent bill of sale of one of our money-lenders would give him if he did what the Times writer has done with respect to these Egyptian documents-namely, assume all the clauses to be habitually carried out in their literal meaning and to their very fullest extent. Without inventing an Egyptian court of equity stepping in with relief against the rigorous apparent meaning of the written document, we may yet use the analogy of our own system of law as calculated to teach the students of these old papyri some little caution in the use of their

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Coming now to the marriage settlements, it seems to us that in the case of these documents there is still more reason to doubt the conclusions of the writer of the Times than in the case of the mortgages. The writer has again followed out the words of the document to their fullest extent, and in addition has apparently put a wrong construction on those words. As to the first crror, he gives an illustration which, if his account of it were correct, ought to have warned him that it is not always safe to deduce the actual practice from the most solemn covenant or promise. When," he says, "in conformity with one of the pleasant fictions of our marriage service, the Benedict of the occasion undertakes to endow with all his worldly goods the fair object of his choice, we know that nothing is in reality further from his intention, and we take the profession for no more than it is worth. But the much-married Egyptian not only undertook but practically performed what the British bridegroom only promises. Witness the following marriage contracts, &c. Most, if not all, of our readers are aware that the meaning of the endowment clause in the marriage service is merely an undertaking that on the death of the husband the wife shall have dower or thirds out of his worldly goods-i.e., his personal estate. The common law gave the widow dower out of the land, but not out of the personalty; and the Church, thinking it right that she should also have thirds out of the chattels, was in the habit of

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exacting, as one of the conditions of performing the marriage service, a solemn promise to this effect; and in the exercise of her jurisdiction over the personalty of deceased persons, she took care that the promise should be fulfilled. At the present day, no doubt, the clause in the marriage service has no operative effect; but this is only because the views of the Church have been adopted by the State. We have mentioned this only to show that if the view evidently taken by the writer in the Times of this public and apparently most solemn promise had been correct-namely, that it was always a mere empty form, the instance ought to have warned him not to rely with absolute confidence on mere writings as showing the practice of ancient peoples. But leaving this minor point, and looking at the documents which the writer in question treats as proving that, on the full establishment of an Egyptian marriage, which took place after a year's novitiate or preliminary cohabitation, "the husband became domestically disfranchised; house and land and securities were the wife's to dispose of at her sole will and pleasure," it appears to us that the documents given, not only do not prove anything of the kind, but actually tend to show that at any rate the general custom of the country was of quite an opposite character. Our space unfortunately does not admit of our giving the translations of the marriage contracts, but the following abstract of the general contents of the documents of this kind which is given in the Times appears to be fairly correct and is sufficient for our purpose :-"These and other similar contracts when analyzed will be found to consist of eight clauses:-(1) The 'acceptance' of the woman by the man-he accepts her for his wife; (2) the nuptial gift presented to the woman by the man; (3) the promise of an annual allowance for dress, particular stress being laid on the first year's payment; (4) a declaration that the eldest son of both shall inherit all the husband's property; (5) a formal promise on the part of the man to hereafter establish' the woman as his wife; (6) an undertaking on the part of the man to pay certain damages in the event of his taking another wife; (7) a list of the woman's goods which she brings with her; (8) a guarantee in the form of a mortgage upon all his property given by the man to the woman." We may add that as to the last clause the form given in the Times is as follows:-"The whole of my property, of whatever description, which is mine, or which I may hereafter possess, is pledged in guarantee for the above words, that I may fulfil them according to their tenour." It is clear that there is no trace here of forfeiture of all the husband's goods. He is to give his wife pin and pocket money, and in certain events he is to pay damages to her, and his property is merely charged with these obligations, to the same extent as an Englishman's property is charged by an ordinary covenant. Indeed the writer in the Times is SO confused on this point that the sentence which we have partially quoted above, as to "house and lands and securities being the wife's to dispose of at her sole will and pleasure," concludes with the words, and if the man desired to sell any part of his own estate he could only do so in the name of his eldest son." But, surely, if he could dispose of his estate at all, he was not so absolutely disfranchised in favour of his wife as the writer thinks. Other forms, however, of marriage settlements are given or referred to whereby the husband grants all his property to his wife, imposing on her the obligation to maintain him during his life, and, after his death, to provide for the embalming of his body and the [perpetual] funereal liturgies of his memorial chapel; in other words, the property taken by the wife was taken subject to these obligations. In cases of settlements of this kind, at all events, the writer seems to think that the husband became instrument in the hands of the wife, with nothing to do but act as her agent and obey her commands." But surely this is a most rash deduction. The amount of the husband's present and probable fortune might in these cases have been inconsiderable, and the object might have been a mere conveyancing plan for defeating creditors or guarding against the effects of known extravagance or imprudence; and, after all, the husband reserved very considerable rights as against the wife-i.e., in all probability, as against the property, for it is not to be supposed that the wife could dispose of the property free from the husband's rights. The fact, indeed, seems to be that both the system of trusts and the mechanism of life estates were not known to, or, at any rate,

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were not made use of by, these framers of marriage settlements. The object at which they so carefully aimed was plainly the protection of the wife, and not at all the subjugation of the husband. In most cases the rights of the wife seem to have been carved out of the husband's property; in other, but apparently exceptional, cases, the whole of his property was settled, with such obligations, however, as above mentioned. But all this seems to show us that, in the absence of these specific contracts, the wife would have taken nothing, and would not even have had the satisfaction of knowing that her son would be her husband's heir. So that, in fact, it would be as unsafe to deduce, from the comparatively few marriage settlements which have been preserved and translated, the conclusion that, in the Egypt of the period in question, "the woman owns and rules all, the man is an helpless dependent, the pensioner of his wife," as it would be hereafter to deduce from a handful of English marriage settlements some such conclusion as this: that on his marriage, every Englishman made over all his property to a couple of persons, who were frequently relatives of the wife; that it was the duty of these persons to give the wife all the produce of the husband's property, taking particular care that she used it only for herself, apart from all participation by the husband; that these new owners could lease or sell or exchange the property as they liked, or at all events with a mere formal consent on the part of the evidently down-trodden, if not actually starved, husband; that even after the death of the wife the rights of the husband did not revive in his own property even for his life, but that during all the rest of his life he was under the tutelage of the persons to whom he had made it over; that, to add, as it were, insult to injury, he was made to covenant on his marriage that he was entitled to strip himself of his property, &c., &c. Probably the conclusions of the Times' writer as to the general state of Egyptian husbands and wives are as erroneous as the above imaginary conclusions would be as to the state of married Englishmen in the nineteenth century. But, for our present purpose, it is not necessary to go so far as this. We only wish to show that, to a person conversant with actual legal affairs, it must appear most unsafe and unsound to draw the conclusions drawn by the writer in the Times from the documents from which they have in fact been drawn. As to the transactions relating to the dead, our space does not enable us to print any of the documents given in the Times. It is sufficient, however, to say that the religion of the Egyptians required the careful preservation of a man's body after his death, and the performance of certain rites in perpetuity; that such performance was contracted for by the above-mentioned class of priests called Choachytes, on their own behalf and that of their descendants; that there was thus a kind of perpetual benefit to the priests and their descendants in respect of each mummy; and that the priests, in disposing of their benefits, were in the habit of doing so by reference to the mummies themselves. It is clear that this amounted to little more than burdening each man's property with a perpetual annuity, for a purpose to which it would be easy to imagine an English analogy-say, for example, keeping his tomb in good repair for ever. But the writer in the Times draws the conclusion from the Egyptian custom that the Egyptian, " as a corpse, belonged to his choachyte, who could sell him, mortgage him, or will him at pleasure." A rasher conclusion this even than those which the same writer draws from the transactions relating to the living.

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We may conclude these observations by a short reference to an article in the Saturday Review of December 31, suggested by the first of the above-mentioned articles in the Times-namely, that on the marriage settlements. The Saturday Review, oddly enough, seems to accept the conclusions of the Times, and accounts for the supposed superiority of the Egyptian women on the ground that, among savages, the mother is often the root of descent, and thus the superiority of the wives was a relic of ancient barbarism, or, as the writer expresses it, "the form which the important position of the mother assumed as society became wealthier and more polished." But among barbarous tribes the mere tracing of descent through the mother, the only known relative, by no means implies the possession by the mother of either power, property, or importance. On the contrary, the mother or wife is a mere chattel or slave. The Saturday Review might as well look on our equitable doctrine of separate estate, or on the provisions of the

Married Women's Property Act, 1870, as survivals of barbarism as regard these marriage settlements of the Egyptians as remnants of savage life.

On the whole, it appears to us that the safest way to deal with these interesting documents is to suspend our judgment about the general state of the society to which they refer until further documents or other sources of information are made available, and in the meantime to regard them as probably pointing to a state of society diametically opposite in its chief characteristics to that so vividly sketched by the writer in the Times.

BANKRUPTCY LAW REFORM.
[COMMUNICATED.]

VIII.

THE next clanse of the Government Bill which we come to (44) provides for the Comptroller and his staff to act under the Board of Trade, and gives the Board power to appoint additional auditors, solicitors, and other assistants; whilst clause 45 provides that there shall be attached to each court an official receiver or official receivers of bankrupts' estates, to be appointed by and act under the Board of Trade, but to be officers of the courts to which they are attached. These are necessary provisions to carry out the main proposals of the Government.

Clause 46 defines the duties of official receivers. We have anticipated all we have to say on the various sub-clauses of this clause in our remarks upon clauses 11 and 12, clause 16, sub-clause 3; clause 18, sub-clause 1, and clause 33.

Clause 47 relates to proceedings of the Board of Trade being received in evidence, and calls for no remarks. Clauses 48 to 54 are included under the general heading "Judicial Staff and Proceedings." Before proceeding to comment thereon, we will give a general outline of the provisions of those clauses, setting out at length only such parts thereof as we desire to call attention to. Clause 48 provides for the consolidation of the London Bankruptcy Court with the Supreme Court of Judicature, and makes other provisions consequent thereon. Clause 49 assigns to the Chancery Division all bankruptcy matters in which the London Bankruptcy Court has at present jurisdiction, or would have, but for the consolidation to be effected by the previous clausa; a judge of the Chancery Division, to be appointed by the Lord Chancellor, to transact bankruptcy matters, with power to sit and exercise jurisdiction in chambers. Sub-clause 4 is as follows:-"Subject to rules of court, all bankruptcy matters shall continue to be entitled as hitherto 'in bankruptcy.' Clause 50 makes further provisions for the appointment of an additional judge. Clause 51 is an amendment of section 59 of the presert Act, and, in effect, a return to the provisions of section 88 of the Act of 1861, substituting the county courts having jurisdiction in bankruptcy for the old local courts of bankruptcy. Section 59 of the present Act makes the court of the district in which the debtor resides or carries on business at the time of the petition the court to have jurisdiction. This clause proposes to give jurisdiction to the court in the district of which the debtor has resided or carried on business for the greater part of the six months prior to the petition, or for a greater length of time during that period than in the district of any other court. Clause 52 proposes to restrict the power of a judge to delegate his powers to his registrar, as follows:

"(a.) The power to commit for contempt of court shall not be delegated. “(.) Any person interested shall be entitled to have any particular question, being a question of law or involving the exercise of judicial discretion, determined by the judge himself, and the registrar shall adjourn ary such question before the judge accordingly."

Clause 53 is as follows:

"If any question of law or fact arises under a bankruptcy petition in a local bankruptcy court which the parties to the question desire, or which one of them and the judge of the local court desire, to be tried in the first instance in the High Court of Justice, the question shall be determined in the High Court, and the proceedinge, or such of them as may be required, eball be transmitted to the High Court for the purposes of the determi

nation."

Clause 54 relates to appeals, and is as follows :

:

"Decisions in bankruptcy matters shall be subject to appeal as follows:"(1.) An appeal shall lie from the decision of the High Court of Justice to her Majesty's Court of Appeal.

(4.) No appeal shall be entertained under this Act except in con ormity with such rules of court as may for the time being be in force in relation to the appeal."

We think the amalgamation of the London Bankruptcy Court with the Supreme Court of Judicature very desirable, and could never understand why the provision to that effect contained in the Judicature Act, ever, is an adoption in part only of the recommendation of the Incor1873, was, by the Act of 1875, repealed. The present proposal, howporated Law Society. That society recommended that a judge should be appointed to give his whole time to bankruptcy, and not merely one day a week, as at present, the hearing of the major part of bankruptcy cases in London being transacted by the registrars under delegated powers. Now, so far as practitioners in the country are concerned, the proposal in clause 52, sub-clause (b.), will effect all they can desire in this respect, but in London it may be different. With regard to that sub-clause we would, however, suggest that the party requiring a matter to be determined by the judge should be required to give notice in writing to that effect to the court and the opposing party, say, two clear days before the day appointed for the hearing. This would save expense, especially if counsel should be instructed.

With respect to clause 49, sub-clause 4, we wish to remark that we were not aware that it was usual to entitle all bankruptcy matters "In bankruptcy." We think it is the invariable practice to entitle them "In the London Bankruptcy Court," or "In the County Court of holden at," as the case may be.

The provision in clause 51 we consider will be a very sensible return to the law as it stood before the present Act. Why the change should have been made by that Act we never could understand, and it is another instance of making changes for the mere sake of change, and where none was ever asked for, which is one of the great blots of that Act. On the subject of this clause we desire to call attention to the exceedingly unsatisfactory manner in which, as it appears to us, the Lord Chancellor has exercised his power of excluding county courts from bankruptcy jurisdiction and attaching the same to any other court for the purposes of bankruptcy proceedings under section 79 of the Act of 1869. We think there are quite too many county courts with this jurisdiction, and that some centre ought to be selected—say one for each county or division of a county-and all districts within that county or division amalgamat ed into one court for bankruptcy purposes. Take for instance the courts in Manchester and the surrounding district. Now, Manchester has jurisdiction in bankruptcy, and so has Salford, although the two court-houses are not more than about seven oreight minutes' walk apart, and the two districts are so divided that it is often difficult (and in some cases even impossible) to determine in which district a person resides. The Salford court includes Hulme, Moss Side, and Stretford, Hulme being a part of the city of Manchester, and the other two places being suburbs thereof, much more identified therewith than with Salford. Beyond these, however, in the county of Chester, and separated from the Manchester district by the places named, we find the district of the Altrincham County Court (a very extensive agricultural district) attached to Manchester for bankruptcy purposes! And we find courts having jurisdiction in Oldham, Ashton-under-Lyne, and Bolton, all in the same county within a few miles' radius from Manchester, and at Stockport, which, though in Cheshire, includes a large district in Lancashire, adjoining Manchester. We are strongly of opinion that it would be more satisfactory if Manchester were made a centre for the whole of the division of South-East Lancashire. It might be that the question of compensation to the officers of the courts that would be excluded by this proposal would crop up, but we do not think that that should stand in the way of such a desirable improvement, and as counter-balancing that, the saving that would be effected in the number of official receivers to be appointed throughout the country might well be considered, and also in the expense of local audits, if that proposal should be adopted.

Clause 53 we think very likely to succeed, as it would do away with that uncertainty as to whether questions should be tried in the Bankruptcy Court, under section 72 of the present Act, or by way of action in one of the ordinary tribunals, which a long series of cases in the Court of Appeal, beginning with Ex parte Dickin, Re Pollard (26 W. R. 731, L. R. 8 Ch. D. 377), has caused.

Sub-clause 1 of clause 54 is the same as the present law. Subclause 2 seems to be an experiment for the purpose of avoiding the expense of a double appeal. It will decidedly be an improvemeut for suitors if it does not cause too much work for the Court of Appeal, which is the great danger. It does not appear clear from the sub-clause whether the bankruptcy judge is to sit along with the full number of We take it that the latter would be quite sufficient, and would be a three judges in the Court of Appeal, or as constituting one of the three. saving of judicial strength. With regard to sub-clause 3, we think a deter-right of appeal to the House of Lords should be given where the amount in question exceeds a certain sum, and otherwise only by leave. We take it this would be so in all cases under clause 53, and with the present restrictions parties might be tempted to proceed under that clause so as to have a right of ultimate appeal to the House of Lords, whereas otherwise they might be contented to allow the case to be tried in the first instance in the Bankruptcy Court at much less expense.

(2.) An appeal shall lie from the decision of a local court of bankruptcy to her Majesty's Court of Appeal, and for the purpose of hearing and mining any such appeal the judge of the High Court appointed to exercise jurisdiction in bankruptcy shall, unless unable to attend, be a member of the Court of Appeal.

46

(3.) An appeal shall, with the leave of her Majesty's Court of Appeal, but not otherwise, lie from the decision of that court to the House of

Lorde.

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