with which the rooms have been fitted up. We have often pointed out the advantage likely to result to the public, not merely from the removal of the Paymaster to the neighbourhood of the legal offices, but also from the proposed remodelling of his office in six divisions; and in the present depressed condition of the national finances it may not be altogether unimportant to remember that the Government is now practically paying heavy rent for two sets of offices for the same department, one of them being unoccupied.

BY THE DEATH of Dr. Heffter, Germany has lost one of her most distinguished public jurists. His great work is perhaps the most authoritative of recent treatises on international law, and is remarkable alike for clearness of classification and for the care with which the statements are supported by the citation of authorities. It was first published in 1844, and reached a second edition in 1848. In 1857 M. Bergson translated it into French, and after his death his version was revised by the author. In 1860 a Greek translation was published by a learned professor at Athens, and it has been stated that in 1864 the book was translated into the Polish language. It is by this work, of course, that Dr. Heffter is best known, but he had previously produced several other books on Roman Law and other subjects, and a treatise on the German criminal law. He studied law at Leipsic and Berlin, and in 1820 became assessor of the Court of Appeal at Cologne. In 1822 he was appointed Professor in the University of Bonn, and after remaining there about six years, removed to Halle, and thence to Berlin, where, among other offices, he had held those of Professor in the University and President of the Council of the School of Law.

THE CHANCERY CAUSE LIST contains 459 causes, distributed with tolerable evenness between the five chancery judges. The paper of the Master of the Rolls contains 103 causes, including 37 with witnesses; that of Vice-Chancellor Malins contains 85 causes; that of Vice-Chancellor Bacon 83; that of Vice-Chancellor Hall 89 causes (including 37 with witnesses); and that of Mr. Justice Fry contains 99 causes, including the 50 recently transferred. The cause list for last Hilary sittings contained 378 causes only. The appeals for the present sittings number, from the Chancery Division, 64 from final orders and 33 from interlocutory orders, making in all 97 chancery appeals. There are 101 appeals from the Common Law Divisions, of which 16 are from interlocutory orders. From the Probate, &c., Division there are 16 appeals, 3 of which are from interlocutory orders, and there are about 30 bankruptcy appeals, making in all 244 appeals, as against 208 appeals last Hilary sittings. The result of the lists is to show a heavy increase in the pending work alike of the Chancery Division and of the Court of Appeal.

RULE 3 of the rules under the Summary Jurisdiction Act prescribes that the "clerk of each court of summary jurisdiction shall keep the register required to be kept by him in pursuance of the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1870 [see section 22], with such particulars as appear by the form in Part III. of the schedule hereto." The register is, by section 22, to be "a register of the minutes or memorandums of the convictions and orders of the court, and of such other proceedings as are directed by a rule under the Act to be registered." The form contains six columns, in which will have to be entered the names of the complainant and defendant, the nature of the complaint, the "minute of adjudication, and the names of the justices adjudicating.' plain that the keeping of this register will entail a considerable increase of labour on the part of clerks to justices, and these gentlemen will, no doubt, turn their

It is

attention to those provisions of the Acts 14 & 15 Vict c. 55, s. 9, and 40 & 41 Vict. c. 43, which allow salaries to be "varied." The register itself, of which the germ may be found in the register directed to be kept by the Licensing Act, 1872, will no doubt be useful to justices of the peace, if they choose to take the trouble to exercise that privilege of search which the Act allows to them only, and to persons authorized by them or by a Secretary of State (section 22, sub-section 6). Similar observations apply to the form of account of fines, "to appear in chronological order," to the remitted fees-book, and to the security-book, which is to show "the name and address of each person bound, showing whether he is bound as principal or as surety, the sum in which each person is bound, the undertaking or condition by which he is bound, the date of the security, and the person before whom it is taken." The entry of all these particulars will require much attention and neatness, and in course of time the accumulated "books" will form an extensive library. We somewhat miss a rule providing for their destruction after a given period of time-say twenty

years.

A CASE heard before one of the metropolitan police courts this week reminds us of a useful but comparatively little-known Act, which was passed with a view of adding to the security to be derived from servants' characters. It would be well that servants should know that the 32 Geo. 3, c. 56, makes punishable with a fine of £10 or imprisonment any person who falsely personates a master or mistress, and gives any false, forged, or counterfeited character to any one offering himself or herself as a servant; or who knowingly and falsely asserts in writing that any servant has been hired for any period of time or in any capacity other than that in which he or she shall have hired such servant; or that any servant was discharged or left his or her service at any other time than that at which he or she was discharged or actually left; or that any such servant had not been hired or employed in any person's service. And the same penalty is imposed on any person offering himself or herself as a servant who asserts or pretends that he or she has served in any service in which such servant shall not have actually served, or offers himself or herself with a false, forged, or counterfeit certificate of his or her character or skill, or adds to or alters, effaces, or erases any word, &c., in any certificate given to him or her by his or her last or former actual master or mistress; or having been before in service shall, when offering to hire himself or herself as a servant, falsely and wilfully pretend not to have been hired in any person's service. In the recent case, a servant who had been dismissed for misconduct, twelve months afterwards assumed the name of a fellowservant who had been with her in her former place, but had since left; and applied in such name to the former master for a character. The fraud was discovered, and the servant was convicted.

are

IT HAS BEEN STATED by one of the leading cab proprietors of the metropolis that the Acts relating to hackney carriages in the metropolis are about to be consolidated by the Home Office. We trust that this statement may prove correct. The statutes appear to be eight in number, and, taken as a whole, they contain more repetitions than any set of statutes we acquainted with; one was passed (if we remember right) in a panic after a cab strike; the direction of another that cabs must carry a lamp has been habitually disregarded; and the last enables a Secretary of State to make "regulations" overriding most of the statutory provisions, but directs that "all the provisions of the Acts relating to hackney carriages" shall continue in force subject to any such regulations. With regard to the form of the law, we would

express a hope that such "regulations" as may seem to be desirable will be placed in a schedule to the Bill, to be altered by the Home Office in case of necessity, and we would suggest that sections 37-68 of the Town Police Clauses Act, 1847, which regulate hackney carriages in all large towns (for they are incorporated by section 171 of the Public Health Act, 1875), may very well be taken as models. The thirty sections contain nearly as much as the whole body of the metropolitan statutes put together, and it has not been found necessary to amend them. With regard to amendments of substance it may be suggested that cabs should be divided into two classes, like the voitures de place and the voitures de remise of Paris. And we cannot but think that the 9th section (sub-section 3) of 32 & 33 Vict. c. 15, which enables a Secretary of State to make regulations (among other things) "for fixing the rates or fares as well for time as for distance to be paid for hackney carriages, provided that it shall not be made compulsory on the driver of any hackney carriage to take passengers at a less fare than the fare payable at the time of the passing of this Act," had better disappear from the statute-book unless some return to the public in the shape of improved accommodation be stipulated for. As a matter of fact the power of increasing fares has never been exercised by the Home Office, and it is at least doubtful whether such a power should be intrusted to the executive.

THE COPIOUS AND ELABORATE FORMS which are appended to the rules under the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879, "do not," we are reminded in a preliminary note, "supersede those in the schedule to 11 & 12 Vict. c. 43, which may, so far as they are not inconsistent with the provisions of any later Act, be still used in cases to which they are applicable." The forms under both Acts are permissive only, the Act 11 & 12 Vict. c. 43 enacting, by section 32, that "the forms in the schedule to this Act contained, or forms to the like effect, shall be good, valid, and sufficient in law," and the new rules providing (No. 30) "that the forms in the schedule hereto or forms to the like effect may be used, with such variations as circumstances require." We think it is much to be deplored that the full powers of section 29, par. (b), and sub-section 2" to prescribe the forms to be used under the Summary Jurisdiction Acts or any of them," and to "annul "" any forms contained in the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1848 (11 & 12 Vict. c. 43), have not been exercised in the matter of the latter forms. If statutory forms are meddled with at all, they should be completely abrogated and superseded. A good precedent for proper action in this matter may be found in the rules issued by the Local Government Board under the Bastardy Act, 1873, s. 6, which exercised the power of issuing new forms so completely that the statutory forms appended to 8 Vict. c. 10 were swept away from the statutebook by the Statute Law Revision Act, 1875-whether rightly or wrongly we need not here inquire.

THE NEW PENNY POSTAGE STAMPS have the solitary merit of adhering to paper as well as receipt stamps do; but in most other respects they are a questionable improvement. As a work of art they are lamentable. The engraving is coarse; her most gracious Majesty is represented with something like a black eye and an appearance of discoloration on the temple; her lips are African in character, and her profile is entirely devoid of expression. As regards utility, the colour of the new penny stamp appears to be an adaptation of that used in the judicature stamps, which, as most persons who have to deal with them know, are apt to lose their colour on being dipped in water. The object in both cases is doubtless to prevent cancelled stamps from being cleaned and used again, but in the case of stamps in such universal and careless use as penny postage stamps

it would seem to be more desirable to prevent this by the use of indelible cancelling ink than by fugitive colour.

FOLLOWING THE EXAMPLE set by the Temple Benchers, the benchers of Lincoln's-inn propose to devote a set of rooms to providing common rooms for the use of members of Lincoln's-inn, both barristers and students, provided a sufficient number of members of the society express a wish to subscribe 10s. 6d. a year. The rooms will consist of a reading-room, writing-room, and smoking-room, with a kitchen for providing tea and coffee, &c., on a tariff to be settled by the committee, and they will be managed by a committee to be elected by the subscribers.

OUR READERS will find in another column a copy of an order of transfer of fifty causes from the Master of the Rolls to Vice-Chancellor Bacon, and, for the purpose of trial or hearing only, to Mr. Justice Fry.

At the recent Surrey Sessions the learned chairman (Mr. Hardman), in his address to the grand jury, alluded to the Habitual Drunkards Act, which had just come into force. It was a desirable statute, but there might be a difficulty in carrying it out, as before persons could be sent to "retreats they had to declare themselves habitual drunkards. He thought it would be an improvement in the law if courts had the power to deal with persons who were led into crime through their own intemperance by sending them to retreats to be under control and treatment without their consent.

Referring to the Summary Jurisdiction Act, he said he thought it contained some admirable provisions, but in his opinion there were difficult clauses which were unintelligible and unworkable, owing to the number of alterations which had been introduced during its progress in Parliament.

At the Surrey Sessions on Tuesday a discussion took place on the salary of the clerk of the peace. The July Quarter Sessions recommended an increase of £500 a year to be made to the salary of the clerk of the peace (Mr. Wyatt), after a strenuous opposition on the part of Lord Midleton. The matter had subsequently been under the consideration of the Home Secretary, who had declined to sanction the increase. In the letter written by Mr. Godfrey Lushington from the Home Office it was stated that the emoluments of the office in salary and fees amounted to £2,240, that his whole time was not required, and that he was entitled to follow his private practice. In order to place the payments on a legal footing, the Home Secretary made an order for raising the salary from £1,150 to £1,375. The increase of £225 would be merely nominal, as it would represent the average annual amount of the additional payments that had been made to the clerk of the peace during the last five years, without the authority of the Secretary of State, in respect of services relating to the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act and the Parliamentary Registers. The chairman (Mr. Leycester Penrhyn) moved, in consequence of the letter, that the order of the court, made at the Midsummer Sessions, 1873, sanctioning payments to the clerk of the peace for work done and expenses incurred under the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, be rescinded, and also that the order of allowance made in 1877 for the Parliamentary Registers be likewise rescinded. Lord Onslow seconded the motion, and an animated discussion ensued, Mr. Hardman declaring that he had studied the Act under which the orders were made, and believed the court had authority to make the orders. Mr. G. Austin thought that the Home Office was enoroaching on the rights of the magistrates. Mr. Hinde Palmer, Q.C., moved an amendment, "That, inasmuch as it appears from the letter of the Secretary of State, dated the 28th of August, that the procedure required by the statute of 14 & 15 Viot. c. 55 has not been complied with, the validity of the order of the Secretary of State, dated the 20th of November, and purporting to be made under the statute, is open to doubt, and that the further consideration of the subject be adjourned to the Easter Ses sions." Lord Monson seconded the amendment, but the motion was ultimately carried.

GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE ON BEHALF OF FOREIGN BONDHOLDERS.

IN connection with Lord Salisbury's recent reply to the Turkish bondholders, it may be interesting to refer to 1847, when Lord George Bentinck proposed to obtain the general principles laid down by Lord Palmerston in redress from the Spanish Government for the English holders of unpaid Spanish bonds.

Lord Palmerston fully admitted that according to the law of nations, one government was entitled to enforce from another Government redress for all wrongs done to its subjects, including the non-payment of debts due to them from foreign bondholders, but he pointed out that there might be differences as to the expediency of thus interfering in different cases. If a foreign Government forcibly seized the property of British subjects it would clearly be the duty of the British Government to enforce redress. So it would be if a British subject, engaged in trade with the subjects of a foreign country, cannot obtain from the tribunals of that country the redress he is entitled to, it being to the advantage of this country to encourage commercial dealings with foreign countries. But, on the other hand, it was not for the advantage of this country to encourage British subjects to invest their capital in loans to foreign countries; and if the principle were established that the payment of such loans would be enforced by the arms of England, the British nation would always be liable to be involved in serious disputes with foreign countries upon matters with regard to which the British Government had never been consulted.

Lord Palmerston, however, both in this speech and in a circular which he issued in January, 1848 (See Phillimore's International Law, vol. 2, p. 9), Government might hereafter be compelled to depart warned the defaulting Governments that the British established practice, and to insist

from

its

on

this threat has never been acted upon, and would the payment of debts due to British subjects. But be practically very difficult to put in execution against any State with a large debt and financially embarrassed. For such a State, the first step towards paying its debts is the establishment of a competent and honest administion, and this is, in most cases, more likely to be hindered than advanced by the hostile action of a foreign Government, even if that one power were allowed to interfere by itself, and were not obliged (as it probably would be) to defer to the jealousies of other Powers and ask them to co-operate with it.

But, apart from the practical difficulties of enforcing payment, the financial history of Turkey, Egypt, and Peru (not to go back to Spain and other earlier instances of lavish borrowing, followed by repudiation), shows that facilities for contracting foreign loans are rather a danger than an advantage to an illgoverned State, and that any alteration in the British rule against interfering on behalf of foreign bondholders, which would assist similar borrowing for the future, would be very undesirable. And it would be difficult to interfere at all without doing this.

The Western Jurist says that a Western lawyer, who was blind in one eye, in addressing the jury, said: "In my argument I shall not use anything but what is absolutely necessary." "Then," remarked one of the jurymen, "take one of the glasses out of your spectacles."

At the Gloucestershire Quarter Sessions, Mr. Dorrington, the chairman, announced that probably it would be the last time he should preside in that court, as he stood first on the list for sheriffs for the ensuing year, and it had been decided that his holding the county chairmanship did not exempt him from serving as sheriff. Mr. Barwick Baker moved a memorial pointing out the inconvenience of such appointment, which could best be obviated by deciding that county chairmanship should be an excuse from shrievalty. Earl Ducie, the Lord-Lieutenant, seconded the resolution, which was carried unanimously.

OUR JUDICIAL SYSTEM.

A CONSIDERABLE period of time has elapsed since the Judicature Acts came into operation, and we may now fairly form some estimate of the result of perhaps the most sweeping measure of law reform that, so far as practice and procedure are concerned, was ever passed. Very vague and unpractical ideas existed in the minds of many among those who talked loudly of law reform at the time when the new enactments were fresh topics of discussion. Very absurd ideas, for instance, prevailed on the subject of the fusion of law and equity. The notion that every judge should administer all branches of the law indiscriminately seems to us unpractical. It is contrary to the fundamental principle of the division of labour. It would deteriorate the quality of the law, and would tend to make it more uncertain. Division of labour tends to produce perfection in the performance of particular processes, but it, no doubt, tends to narrowness of general capacity. It is clearly desirable that there should be tribunals dealing with all branches of law in order that the harmony between them may be maintained, and something of philosophical breadth be preserved in the whole system. But it seems to us that these should be tribunals of appeal, where matters are generally more fully and leisurely argued than before the inferior tribunals. We cannot think it desirable that when rapid dispatch of business in matters of first instance is required, it should come to be the theory that any intelligent man can, by the light of nature, dispose of matters of a technical nature with which he is wholly unacquainted. The unfamiliarity of a judge with the subject-matter of inquiry causes, to say the least of it, very great delay, and it is always mischievous when the counsel engaged know, and know that they know, a great deal more about the matter than the judge. It is a false position for all parties. The present system of leaving two common law judges to deal with equity matters in vacation is absurd, and we cannot think that sending Vice-Chancellors to try murders is anything better than a reckless experiment. We believe that though it is right that there should be but one court of justice, nevertheless there ought to be various members, so to speak, of that one body performing special functions. At present, however, it seems to us that we are very far from having arrived at anything like symmetry or harmony in the interior arrangements of our one court of justice.

With that natural conservatism so distinctive of Englishmen, and which is practically far more beneficial than it is logically defensible, the framers of the Judicature Acts endeavoured to combine as little disturbance

of the associations and arrangements of the past as possible with the new and more philosophical system that they were intending to establish. It was thought, and probably with justice, that so the change might be most safely and conveniently accomplished, and no rude shock given to the continuity of our judicial system. It was probably thought that the new system would gradually in its working throw out those elements of antiquity which were fundamentally inconsistent with itself. These expectations have been very largely fulfilled with the help of some supplementary legislation; but it seems to us that matters have now come to that pass in which certain remnants of the old system obstinately bar the way to the complete symmetrical development of The truth ought to be faced, and at whatever sacrifice to old and cherished historical associations, that that which is really incompatible with the essence of the new system ought to be abolished.

the new.

By the Judicature Act the old Courts of Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer were substantially preserved under the name of Divisions, and ever since then, under the name of Divisional Courts, they have continued to sit at Westminster, without much apparent difference in their pre

sent state of existence from that which they enjoyed previously to the Act, except that in most cases two judges only sit instead of three. It is unnecessary to recapitulate the comments that have frequently been made on this state of things. It has been objected that it causes a waste of judicial power, and that it is absurd and illogical to employ several judges at Westminster to do what one judge does at Lincoln's Inn. An attempt was made to bring about an alteration in this respect by the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1876, but this Act has not been very fully carried out in this respect, and, as it seems to us, for obvious reasons. It was a piecemeal and incomplete measure, and appears to have overburdened the Court of Appeal without obviating the necessity for divisional courts. It seems to us that the only adequate way of dealing with the matter and fully carrying out the policy of the Judicature Acts is to abolish divisional courts of more than one judge altogether for the purpose of the ordinary proceedings in an action, and to increase the staff of the Court of Appeal, throwing upon it a great part of the work that the old courts in Banc used to perform. There is no doubt that a great deal of Banc work was really in the nature of appellate jurisdiction-such as motions for new trials on the_ground of misdirection. We should vastly prefer such a system as that we sketched out some time ago (22 SOLICITORS' JOURNAL, pp. 346, 367), in which the single-judge system was contrasted with the three-judge system. We still entertain the strongest opinion that a single judge does not constitute a good tribunal for the decision of points of law or of mixed law and fact, still less of fact alone. We do not believe in a system which produces a weak and unsatisfactory tribunal of first instance and numerous appeals, in which, as often as not, the decision of the court below is reversed. But the difficulties in the way of working out a three-judge system in courts of first instance are very great under existing circumstances. The chancery lawyer has a great faith in the one-judge system. The common lawyer has an almost invincible belief in the jury system as applicable to facts, however technical and complicated. The system we sketched out in the articles we refer to contemplated the application of the three-judge system to the Chancery Division, and very considerable restriction of the use of trial by jury. We firmly believe that if such a system could be established, it would be a far more reasonable and satisfactory one, and if it were a question of establishing a judicial system de novo, there would, in our opinion, be no question about the matter; but there are, we must admit, great difficulties arising out of long previously existing conditions, political, legal, and social. In the meanwhile, as we have said, the working of the new system state of things, and if the plan we have always advocated has resulted in a most anomalous and unsatisfactory cannot be adopted at present, let us, at all events, make our system for the time being thorough and harmonious. How this should be accomplished we propose to consider hereafter.

Reviews.

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.

THE JUSTICES' NOTE-BOOK. By W. KNOX WIGRAM, Barrister-at-Law, J. P. Middlesex. Stevens & Sons. The title and plan of this work are rather happily conceived, and it is not bad reading, even for persons who are not justices. The main fault we have to find with it, indeed, is that it is such good reading. There is not a little padding which is amusing enough on a first perusal, but seems to be rather out of place in a work intended for constant reference. The disquisition on the birch rod, the sarcastic observations on the expectations frustrated by the withdrawal of the Criminal Code Bill, the observations on husband and wife, and some of the anecdotes are illustrations of the contents to which we refer. We confess, however, that we should be sorry to miss some of the anecdotes-e.g., "A man was indicted the other day for stealing a watch from the pocket, which, in professional fashion, he had at once passed on to an accomplice. Consequently, he was searched in vain. The evidence, however, was clear enough, and while the jury were considering their verdict, I saw the judge, by whom I chanced to be sitting, write down the word guilty' at the foot of his notes. He should have waited a little. The prisoner had been well defended; the case was the first which that jury had tried, and they couldn't get over the tumultuous eloquence of his counsel about the watch not having been found. So in five minutes' time they turned round and mildly answered 'not guilty.' 'Gentlemen,' said the judge, as the prisoner bolted like a rabbit down the steps, 'I may now tell you that I have here four previous convictions for similar offences against that man.' 'Oh, my lord, why couldn't you say so before?' said the foreman." Some of the headings, such as Agreement (p. 60), and Election, Parliamentary (p. 152), seem to have a rather remote connection with the subject. But when this has been said we have nothing but praise for the book, which is a justices' royal road to knowledge, and ought to lead them to a more accurate acquaintance with their duties than many of them have hitherto possessed.

General Correspondence. NORTON v. LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY.

[To the Editor of the Solicitors' Journal.] Sir,-The report of this case in last week's issue of the WEEKLY REPORTER, p. 173, will have been read with great interest by all persons concerned with the question of light and air to property, and it is deeply to be regretted that the Court of Appeal has shelved the main question. This will have to be fought at a future time; meanwhile the judgment seems to leave matters worse than they

were.

The customary width of four feet outside their fence was claimed by the defendants, and the Vice-Chancellor allowed them two feet, but this the Lords Justices declared to have lapsed as surplus land. Lord Justice James in his judgment says, "The defendants have wholly failed to establish their defence in respect of the ownership of any ground outside their quickset fence;" and, again, The hedge should be the real boundary-the visible boundary."

Euclid's definition of a line is length without breadth, and if a growing hedge is in this category I can understand the language of the Lord Justice. A growing hedge, however, has breadth as well as length, and surely the Lord Justice cannot mean that the plaintiff has the right to cut away the defendants' quickset to the centre

of the stem. He must, I presume, mean the "visible boundary" to be its outside branches, but these outside branches overhang the strip of land in question, and this strip of land the Lords Justices have decided has become surplus land and lapsed to the plaintiff.

The Vice-Chancellor evidently foresaw this difficulty. The hedge of the Vice-Chancellor is a real one, that of the Lords Justices imaginary. Not only, therefore, nas the Court of Appeal shirked the main question, but they have given the railway company as a boundary a hedge which cannot be defined.

With regard to the question of light and air, as between ordinary owners of adjoining lands, the Government might deal with this by passing an Act (as they did in the case of the Real Property Limitation Act, 1874), and which should not be retrospective, providing that after, say, the year 1882, time should not establish a right to light. No one would suffer, property would not be depreciated, and frequent disputes would be avoided.

I cannot establish a right of light or to a view if I walk every day to the end of my garden to look at my neighbour's apple trees; then why should I be able to do so if I put up a window to look through, and why, because either through negligence or oversight the light is not stopped within the prescribed period, should my neighbour be bound to respect it, and to keep a certain distance so as not to interfere with its rights and privileges?

The right to claim light from adjoining property should not exist, and should this ever become the law of the land one great source of litigation will have been swept away. "LIGHT AND AIR."

Obituary.

Mr.

MR. CADWALLADER EDWARDS PALMER. Mr. Cadwallader Edwards Palmer, solicitor, notary, and proctor (one of the oldest members of the legal profession in Devonshire), died at Barnstaple on the 27th ult. Palmer was admitted a solicitor in 1816, and had practised for nearly sixty years at Barnstaple. He had a large private practice, and had been for several years clerk to the Commissioners of Land, Assessed, and Property Taxes for the divisions of Braunton, Sherwell, and Fremington. He was also a notary public and deputy-registrar of the archdeaconry of Barnstaple. Mr. Palmer took an active interest in municipal business, and he was one of the borough aldermen, and honorary secretary to the Barnstaple and North Devon Dispensary.

MR. ALAN BACKHOUSE SALMON.

Mr. Alan Backhouse Salmon, solicitor and notary (of the firm of Salmon & Major), of Ulverston and Barrow-inFurness, died at Oubas-house, Ulverston, on the 5th inst. Mr. Salmon was admitted a solicitor in 1862, having served his articles with the late Mr. Robert Francis Yarker, with whom he went into partnership, and whom he afterwards succeeded in the office of clerk to the county magistrates for the division of Lonsdale North. More recently he was associated in partnership with Mr. Seymour Edward Major, having a branch office at Barrow-in-Furness. He was a

notary public, and a perpetual commissioner for Lancashire and Westmoreland, and he was also clerk to the magistrates for the division of Barrow-in-Furness, clerk to the Ulverston Town Lands Trustees, and Liberal registration agent for the Ulverston district.

MR. CHARLES WOODBRIDGE.

Mr. Charles Woodbridge, solicitor, died at the Old Bank, Uxbridge, on the 23rd ult. Mr. Woodbridge was born in 1796. He was admitted a solicitor in 1821, and soon afterwards commenced practice at Uxbridge. He was for many years in partnership with the late Mr. Thomas Harry Riches. More recently he was associated with his sons,