Board of Trade and published in the London Gazette, and any directions contained in that form of contract ticket, not being inconsistent with this Act, shall be obeyed as if set forth in this section." The form approved by the Board of Trade contained a "direction" that "a contract ticket shall not contain on the face thereof any condition, stipulation or exception, not contained in this form." It was held by Vaughan Williams and Kennedy, L.JJ. (Buckley, L.J., dissenting), affirming the decision of Bailhache, J., that the condition, exempting from the consequences of negligence. of the defendants' servants, not having been approved by the Board of Trade, was invalid, and therefore, the defendants were not entitled to the benefit of any such exemption.

In the case of The Charing Cross Electricity Supply Company v. Hydraulic Power Company (L. R. [1914], 3 K. B. 772), the plaintiffs were the owners of electric cables laid under public streets. The defendants were the owners of hydraulic mains which had been laid under the same streets, under statutory powers. These mains burst in four different places, in each case damaging the plaintiffs' cables. The bursting of the mains was not due to any negligence on the part of the defendants. Two of the mains which so burst. had been laid under a private Act which did not contain the usual clause, providing that nothing in the Act should exempt the Company from liability for nuisance. The other two had been laid under a later Act which did contain such a clause. The later Act also provided that the two Acts. should be "read and construed together as one Act." The Court of Appeal held (1) that the doctrine of Rylands v. Fletcher (L. R. [1868], 3 H. L. 330) applies, not only to cases in which the dangerous thing has escaped from the defendants' land on to the plaintiffs' land and done damage there, but also to cases in which the site of the plaintiffs' injury was occupied by him only under a licence and not

under any right of property in the soil, and that in the absence of statutory authorisation of the nuisance, the defendants were liable for the damage caused by the bursting of the mains, notwithstanding that they had been guilty of no negligence. Midwood v. Manchester Corporation (L. R. [1903], 2 K. B. 597) followed. (2) That the effect of the two Acts being read together as one Act was, to take away the privilege which, down to the passing of the later Act, the defendants had enjoyed, in respect of the two firstmentioned mains, of not being liable for damage done by their bursting in the absence of negligence, and that consequently, in the case of all four of the mains, the defendants were liable as for a nuisance.

The head-note in Higgins v. Beauchamp (L. R. [1914], 3 K. B. 1192) seems accurately to represent the effect of the judgment subsequently reported. But is not the statement too general? The head-note is, "A firm carrying on the business of cinematographic theatre proprietors is not a trading firm for the purposes of the rule, that each member of a trading firm has implied authority to borrow money on the credit of the firm for partnership purposes." The decision may be right in the absence of evidence as to usual course of business. But it would seem that a little evidence given at the Bath County Court on the subject would have shown that borrowing money was at times an ordinary incident of such a concern, so as to bring the case within sect. 5 of the Partnership Act 1890, which enacts that "Every partner is an agent of the firm, and his other partners, for the purposes of the business of the partnership, and the acts of every partner who does any act for carrying on in the usual way business of the kind carried on by the firm of which he is a member, bind the firm and his partners." In this case, under the partnership deed, the business was that of proprietors and managers of picture

palaces, cinematograph theatres, and exhibitions, variety entertainments, concerts, theatrical performances, and all other forms of entertainment. Might not procurement of a loan be an act done "for carrying on in the usual way" such a business? Does not Mr. Justice Lush take too limited a view when he says, "A trading business is one which depends on the buying and selling of goods. At any rate, I am satisfied that this particular business is not a trading business"? If it is not, what is it? Moreover, it is not necessary that it should be a trade or trading business. It certainly was a "business." That is, so far, enough for sect. 5 of the Partnership Act.

In The King v. Sagar (L. R. [1914], 3 K. B. 1112) the prisoner was charged with having obtained goods by false pretences. The false pretence alleged in the indictment was, that he had pretended that he was carrying on a genuine and bonâ fide business as a manufacturer's agent and merchant. It was held that receipts sworn to by the prisoner, as having been given to him as acknowledgments of payments for goods purchased by him, other than those the subject of the charge, and entries in his bank pass-books showing payments made by him for goods supplied to him, were admissible as evidence on his behalf that he was in fact carrying on a genuine and bonâ fide business. This evidence having been excluded by the learned judge at the trial as irrelevant to the issue, the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the conviction.

J. H.

SCOTCH CASES.

The reported decisions of the Scots Courts during the last three months are not numerous, and few of them are of general interest. The war with its attendant

The

legislation has been responsible for a group of cases of which Orenstein & Koppel v. The Egyptian Phosphate Co. Ltd. ([1914], 2 S. L. T. 293) is the most important. A German company sued a Scotch company for sums which they alleged to be due under a contract. The pursuers desired that the action should proceed in ordinary course, and they maintained that they had a branch in this country, and that the contract in question was made with that branch and thus fell under the exception to the prohibition of trading with the enemy, contained in sect. 6 of the Royal Proclamation of 9th September 1914. pursuers were manufacturers of railway plant and rolling stock, their works were in Germany, and their manufacturing business was wholly carried on there; but they had an office in London which was carried on by a manager who had full power to enter into contracts, and to raise and defend legal proceedings in this country, and they were registered under the Companies Act of 1908 as a foreign company trading in the United Kingdom. Three of the four judges forming the Court (the Lord President, Lord Mackenzie, and Lord Skerrington) held that the London office was not a branch in the sense of the Royal Proclamation, that the contract fell under the prohibition of trading with the enemy, and that proceedings in the action. must be stayed (in the Scotch phrase "sisted "). Lord Johnston held that the payment of money arising out of a transaction was not a transaction in the sense of the Proclamation, and that such a payment to an enemy was prohibited even if he had a branch in the United Kingdom. This view (in which the Lord President intimated that he concurred) necessarily led to the same result, as the only question in the case was the liability or nonliability of the defenders to pay a sum of money to the pursuers.

Where a Scottish School Board resolves to dismiss a teacher, the Education (Scotland) Act 1908 enacts that the Scottish Education Department, if after inquiry they are of opinion that the dismissal was not justifiable, shall communicate their opinion to the School Board, and, if the School Board do not depart from their resolution, the Department may attach to it the condition that the Board shall pay a sum of money to the teacher. In the case of the School Board of the Parish of Dalziel v. the Scottish Education Department ([1914], 2 S. L. T. 449) the pursuers (the School Board) had dismissed a teacher, as from 30th April 1912. Thereafter they received various letters from the secretary and the assistant secretary of the Department, which intimated that the Department were of opinion that the dismissal was not justifiable, and that in virtue of their powers under the Act of 1908 they attached to the resolution of dismissal a condition that the School Board should pay to the teacher a sum equivalent to three months' salary. The School Board then brought an action in which they craved a declaration that the letters of the secretary and the assistant secretary did not proceed upon and were not authorised by any decision of the Department and were ineffectual. It was common ground that the Scottish Education Department was a Committee of the Privy Council, and that from 1909 to the date of raising the action it consisted of seven persons who were mentioned on record, including the Secretary for Scotland as Vice-President. The pursuers averred that this Committee had never met since the date of its appointment. In defence, the Department stated that since its constitution its business had been conducted by the Secretary of the Department, acting under the directions of the Vice-President, that the letters received. by the pursuers were written by the directions and under the authority of the Vice-President, and that the decisions intimated by them had been taken by the Vice-President.