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Messrs. Charles Woodbridge, jun., and Thomas Harry Riches Woodbridge. He was a perpetual commissioner for Middlesex and Buckinghamshire, and held several important public appointments. His firm are joint clerks to the county magistrates and the Commissioners of Taxes, and Mr. Woodbridge was superintendent registrar for the Uxbridge District. He was also formerly registrar of the Uxbridge County Court, and clerk to the Uxbridge Board of Guardians, both of which offices are now held by Mr. C. Woodbridge, jun. He was also a member of a large banking firm at Uxbridge.

MR. CLEMENT UVEDALE PRICE.

Mr. Clement Uvedale Price, solicitor (of the firm of Hallows, Price, & Hallows), of 39, Bedford-row, associate of the North-Eastern Circuit, died at Torquay, from congestion of the lungs, on the 26th ult. Mr. Price was the fifth son of Mr. Thomas Price, of Clementhorpe, Yorkshire. He was born in 1824, and was admitted a solicitor in 1846. He practised first at 7, Chancery-lane, next at 92, Piccadilly, and afterwards removed to 39, Bedford-row, and went into partnership with Messrs. William Tooke and Arthur William Tooke, and more recently was associated with Messrs. William Hallows and William Alexander Tooke Hallows. He was formerly solicitor to the St. Katherine's Dock Company, to the Middlesex Hospital, and to the Society for the Suppression of Mendicity. About ten years ago Mr. Price was appointed associate of the Northern Circuit, and since 1876 he had discharged the same duties on the NorthEastern Circuit. He was also a director of the Law Fire Insurance Company.

MR. CHARLES BURTON FOX.

Mr. Charles Burton Fox, solicitor, clerk of the peace for Monmouthshire, died suddenly at Newport, on the 1st inst. Mr. Fox was born in 1814, and was admitted a solicitor in 1841. He practised for a short time at 43, Lincoln's-inn-fields, but a few years later removed to Newport, and went into partnership with Messrs. Charles Prothero and Stephen Towgood, the firm being joint county treasurers for Monmouthshire. About five years ago, on Mr. Prothero's death, he was appointed by the Duke of Beaufort to the offices of clerk of the peace and clerk to the lieutenancy for Monmouthshire. He was also clerk to the Newport Borough Magistrates, and to the Newport Harbour Commissioners, and solicitor to the Newport Dock Company, Water Company, and Gas Company. Mr. Fox leaves a widow, one son, and three daughters.

On Tuesday Mr. Higgin, Q.C., in opening the Preston Quarter Sessions, referred to the Summary Jurisdiction Act. He said it was difficult to understand, and its main feature seemed to be to unsettle a very great deal and settle very little. He did not think the Act would work as satisfactorily as the old one.

At the Manchester County Court recently a deputation from the Manchester Creditors' Association of Wholesale Dealers presented a memorial to Mr. J. A. Russell, Q.C., the judge. The association, which has been registered by licence of the Board of Trade under the provisions of the Companies Acts, 1862 and 1867, upon the express understanding that the members do not receive any profits from the funds, has for its object the economical winding up of estates of liquidating or bankrupt individuals or companies. The memorialists complained that in numerous instances they had suffered great loss through the appointment of irresponsible persons as receivers of the estates of liquidating debtors, and that the receivers had applied such estates for their own private purposes. The memorialists submitted that in all cases where persons were nominated for the office of receiver whose position is unknown to the registrar, security should be required, and that when the person nominated cannot find security, or when from the urgency of the appointment the formalities necessary for perfecting the security would occasion delay and inconvenience, an officer of the court should be appointed until such time as the creditors of the debtor are able to nominate some fit and proper person as receiver. The learned judge suggested that a copy of the memorial should be forwarded to the Controller in Bankruptcy.

Societies.

LAW ASSOCIATION.

At the usual monthly meeting of the directors, held at the hall of the Incorporated Law Society, Chancery-lane, on Thursday, the 1st of January, the following being present -viz., Mr. E. Tylee (chairman), and Messrs. Burt, Drew, Hedger, Lucas, and Williamson, and A. B. Carpenter (secretary), the treasurer acknowledged the receipt of £484 78. 6d., being the produce of £500, consols assigned to the association by the executors of the late Miss Harriet Hurst; one new member was elected, and the ordinary general business was transacted.

Law Student's Journal.

COUNCIL OF LEGAL EDUCATION. HILARY EDUCATIONAL TERM, 1880. SCHEME OF LECTURES.

Subjects, and Professors.

Jurisprudence, including international law-public and private, Roman law, and constitutional law and legal history. Joint professors, Frederick Harrison, Esq., and James Bryce, Esq., D.C.L.

Equity.-Professor, Arthur Shelly Eddis, Esq., Q.C.

The law of real and personal property.-Professor, Joshua Williams, Esq., Q.C.

The common law.-Professor, John D. Mayne, Esq. The first lecture will be delivered by the Professor of Roman Law on Thursday, the 15th of January, at 3.15 p.m. Prospectus of the Lectures of the Professors.

The Professor of Roman Law will, during the ensuing educational term, deliver a course of twelve lectures on the Roman law of contracts,

The first lecture will be delivered on Thursday, the 15th of January, 1880, at 3.15 p.m. The subsequent lectures on the above subject will be delivered on Mondays and Thursdays at the same hour.

EQUITY.

The Professor of Equity will, during the ensuing educa– tional term, deliver a course of twelve lectures upon "The application of equity to the subjects in which, previous to the 1st of November, 1875, it operated as auxiliary to or corrective of common law."

The first lecture will be delivered on Friday, the 16th of January, 1880, at 4.15 p.m., and the subsequent lectures. at the same hour on Wednesdays and Fridays.

LAW OF REAL AND PERSONAL PROPERTY.

The Professor of the Law of Real and Personal Property will deliver, during the ensuing educational term, twelve lectures on the Statutes of Limitations and Prescription.

The first lecture will be delivered on Saturday, the 17th of January, 1880, at 3.15 p.m.

The subsequent lectures will be delivered on Tuesdays at 4.15 p.m., and on Saturdays at 3.15 p.m.

COMMON LAW.

The Professor of Common Law will, during the ensuing educational term, deliver twelve lectures on negotiable and mercantile instruments.

The first lecture will be delivered on Monday, the 19th of January, 1880, at 4.15 p.m.

The subsequent lectures will be delivered on Thursdays and Mondays at the same hour.

NOTE.-In December next there will be four examinations, one in the subject of the lectures given by each professor, open (subject as hereinafter mentioned) to all students who have during the year 1880 attended the lectures of any of the professors, but no student will be admitted to the examination in the subjects of the lectures of any professor unless he shall have attended at least two-thirds of the lectures given during the year by such professor. No student will be admitted to more than two examinations; and no student who shall have obtained studentship will be admitted to any such examination.

After the examinations the following prizes will, on the recommendation of the committee, be given (that is to say) :To the students who shall have passed the best examination

in the subjects of the lectures of each professor, first prize, £50; second prize, £25; third prize, £15; fourth prize, £10; and a first and second prize of £70 and £30, respectively, to the students who obtain the greatest aggregate number of marks in the examination in the subjects of the lectures given by any two of the professors.

No student will be entitled to more than one prize, but a student will receive the prize of the highest value to which he shall appear to be entitled.

The committee will not be obliged to recommend any of the above prizes to be awarded, if the result of the examination be such as, in their opinion, will not justify such recommendation. Any further information required by students may be obtained on application to the Clerk of the Council, Lincoln's-inn Hall.

UNITED LAW STUDENTS' SOCIETY.

The following is the annual report of the committee, 1879:-We have the honour of laying before you the fifteenth annual report, and in doing so we are glad to be able once more to congratulate you on the prosperous condition of the society. Sixty-one new members have been added to our list, many of whom have been elected very recently. Of this number, thirty were articled clerks, eighteen bar students, five barristers, two solicitors, and six were members of societies in union with us. Forty-one meetings have been held at Clement's-inn Hall, the average attendance being eighteen. Your committee would, however, call attention to the fact that this figure represents the average attendance as distributed over the whole year, the greatly diminished attendance during the summer months and long vacation (which was this year unusually marked) having very considerably affected the total average. Indeed, in the opinion of your committee, the debates both in the earlier months of this year, and again since the middle of October, have shown an improvement which augurs well for the success of the meetings during the ensuing year. Of the forty-one meetings three were entirely devoted to business. One meeting was devoted to a joint debate with the Law Students' Debating Society. A joint debate was also held with the same society at the Law Institution. The attendance on both occasions was good, and your committee venture to express a hope that these meetings between the two societies, which only originated last year, may for the future be continued regularly. At a meeting on July 16, Sir Patrick Colquhoun, Q.C., read a paper on the "The Authorship of the Plays Attributed to Shakespeare," which was followed by a discussion. On January 15 the committee appointed by you to consider the subject of legal education, presented their report, which was adopted by the society. Copies of it were forwarded by the committee's secretary (Mr. E. H. Quicke) to the Incorporated Law Society, and to other gentlemen who were known as taking an interest in the subject. A large number of copies were also distributed with the annual reports. On February 5 the society adopted some rules drawn up by the librarian for the regulation of the library, and in March these rules, together with a catalogue of the books, were published for distribution among the members. On March 19 the Davis Prize for the best essay on "The Law of Joint Stock Companies," was awarded to your secretary, Mr. W. C. Owen. We regret to say that this prize will be no longer offered for competition, and it will be for the society to consider the advisability of offering another prize in its place. In making this announcement, we desire to express our appreciation of the kindness which Mr. Davis has extended to the society for many years in the gift of this prize. In September Mr. II. E. Barren was appointed secretary of the Legal Correspondence Department in the place of Mr. H. J. Gidney, resigned. On November 5, Mr. R. G. Templer was appointed reporter in the place of Mr. W. J. God den resigned; the society at the same time passing a motion giving the reporter a place on the committee. Thirteen meetings have been held at the Law Institution for the discussion of legal moots. The average attendance has been thirteen, but here also your committee would draw attention to the difficulty experienced in keeping up these meetings during the summer months, as largely affecting the total average. The meetings have, however, since October again assumed a most satisfactory character, both in the number of members present, and in the quality of the discussions. Your committee would urge upon members |

&

the great importance of these meetings to a society of lawyers, and would state their conviction of the benefit which not only bar students, but also articled clerks may derive from discussing moots involving important principles of law. In consequence of motions brought forward by Mr. J. Gatey, and adopted by the society on the 2nd of July, four speakers are now appointed whenever moot is to be discussed. Your committee wish also to express their opinion of the benefit which members have it in their power to confer upon the society by reading at these meetings short essays upon some branch of law, to be followed by a discussion upon a moot connected with the subject of the essay. Three essays have been read at these meetings during the past year-viz., on "The Bills of Sale Act, 1879," by Mr. T. Eustace Smith, on "Negligence," by Mr. W. ShirleyShirley, and on "Conditions Precedent and Warranty," by Mr. W. C. Owen; in each case the attendance was good, and the essays listened to with attention. In November your society took a leading part in the arrangements for the Law Student's Congress, which was held on the 7th and 8th of that month at the Law Institution. A report of the proceedings appears in the report of Mr. E. H. Quicke, to be read this evening. The Solicitor-General presided at the inaugural meeting on the 22nd of January last. Several other eminent members of the two professions also took part in the proceedings. The various departments of the society remain to be noticed, and of them it may be said that they are all in good working order. The particulars of their work appear in their separate reports. The library especially has been considerably augmented, and continues in great request. The accounts of the society show but a small balance in the hands of the treasurer after the payment of all current expenses. In this matter the committee have carried out the views which they have always expressed as the true method of applying the funds of the society. They have sought to lay out surplus capital from time to time in furthering the objects of the society, and improving its various departments, rather than to let it accumulate and lie idle in the hands of the treasurer. Accordingly they have this year sanctioned the outlay of the following sums in excess of the ordinary and necessary expenditure :£1710s. have been spent upon the library. A sum which may be estimated at six guineas was expended upon the printing and distribution of the legal education report. In addition to the advertisements previously inserted, a sum of five guineas has been devoted to advertisement in the Law Student's Journal. Your committee, in conclusion, venture to express both their hope and confidence that the prosperity of the society may continue upon that firm footing upon which at the present moment it is established.

Signed, on behalf of the committee, W. C. OWEN, Hon. Sec. Clement's-inn Hall, Strand, Dec. 17, 1879.

At the Sussex Sessions, held at Lewes on Monday, Mr. Grantham, M. P., having taken the chair, asked the chief constable if he had heard anything official with reference to the appointment of a coroner in the room of Mr. Fullagar, one of the coroners for the county of Sussex, sentenced to penal servitude some two months since.-The Chief Constable replied that he wrote to the Home Office immediately Mr. Fullagar's sentence was confirmed, asking for instructions. He was then ordered to apply to Mr. Bostock, the coroner for West Sussex, and that gentleman had since conducted the inquests in both divisions of the county. The Chairman thought it desirable that the clerk of the peace should apply to the Home Office for turther instructions. It was a very difficult question to decide, for although Mr. Fullagar was incarcerated, they were yet unaware if his office had become vacant.-Mr. Crossley asked if freeholders in both divisions of Sussex were entitled to vote in the election of a coroner for East Sussex ?-The Chairman said he thought they were, and that it was the duty of the high sheriff to call them together for the purpose of considering the matter.--Mr. Martineau asked if the magistrates had anything to do with the appointment.-The Chairman considered they had.-Mr. Dobson suggested that the Home Office should be applied to for information how to proceed, and the chairman having undertaken this duty the subject dropped.

THE QUESTION IN THE BEDINGFIELD

CASE.

MR. PITT TAYLOR has replied to the letter of the Lord
Chief Justice by another letter, in which he says:-

Dear Lord Chief Justice-In common with the whole profession of the law, I feel very grateful to your lordship for having, in the midst of your numerous avocations, made time to take up the gauntlet which, in my letter to the Times of the 17th of November, I had-perhaps in too bold a spirit-publicly thrown down. It is alike flattering and agreeable to me that I am permitted to discuss with so distinguished an opponent what you rightly describe as "the very important and interesting legal question" which formed the subject of my remarks.

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done so fell to the ground. From that moment all action on his part ceased." But, my lord, these assertions, however positive, are not proof, and must not be allowed to do service as proof. By what mysterious intuition are you enabled to read men's thoughts? How can you possibly know that the murderer expected his wound on Mrs. Rudd would prove fatal, and what right have you to assume that fact? When we were asked to receive Mrs. Rudd's statement as a dying declaration you answered that there was nothing to show that she expected immediate death, and that you could not presume it. How then can the murderer's expectations be established by presumption? Again, who has told you, that so soon as the wound was inflicted on Mrs. Rudd her murderer proceeded to cut his own throat, and how have you discovered that he then had the full intention of suicide? In all these several matters you must I pass on now to my supposed "misapprehensions of have simply "drawn upon your imagination for your facts," material facts." My only remaining "misapprehenunless the report of the trial be utterly fallacious; and I cansion" is stated by your lordship to be, that I have reprenot imagine that the reporter has so erred, or you would sented the deceased as a woman apparently running away assuredly have mentioned that circumstance in your letter. from an assailant." This, you say, is a misstatement. The assertion that from the moment when Bedingfield fell to The woman was not "running away from an assailant. She the ground "all action on his part ceased," may be fairly had left the assailant lying in her front room with his inferred from the nature of his wound, if you mean by throat cut, which, as appeared from her gestures when "action" any further murderous attack on the woman. But brought into the house, she perfectly well krew." Here, the next few sentences in your letter are to me, I must con-then, is the "particular eminently material to the question' fees, quite incomprehensible. You proceed thus:-"His in which, "misled by appearances," I have been betrayed victim had nothing further to fear from him; and this she into error. But for this fatal mistake you admit, with the must have known, as she must have been aware of what he frankness of an honourable opponent, that I should have had done. For, when she came back into the house she established my case. Your language is quite clear, and I knew he was in the adjoining room. Showing her throat she cannot make a mistake about that. "A man," you say at pointed to the room in which he lay, indicating that in what page 20, "finds himself waylaid by another who makes a would there be seen was to be found the cause and explanation murderous assault upon him; whereupon, succeeding in of her condition." You complain of my making false assumpmaking his escape, he flies, and, outrunning his assailaint tions, misled by appearances; but here you have made a whole applies to the first person he meets for protection, stating string of assumptions, misled, it is true, but certainly not what has happened, and who it is that has by appearances. The only direct evidence of the woman's assailed him, and from whom he of apprehends state mind when she made her exclamation danger. In such case I should have no hesitation was that given by Mrs. Simpson, who described her in holding the statement so made to be properly as "coming out of the house, bleeding very much from the part of the res gesta." Here let us pause for one moment. throat, and seeming very much frightened." What caused Suppose that the assailant in his pursuit had fallen and her fright? Was it the dread of impending death? Then broken his leg, but that the assailed was not aware of this, her statement was admissible as a dying declaration, and and still imagined that he was being followed. In such a poor "Tyro" is right after all. Or was it the fear of a case I will not insult your lordship by assuming that your renewed assault? And if so, then I am right by your own decision respecting the admissibility of the statement could admission. I leave you to solve this dilemma. But the have varied in the slightest degree. To hold otherwise woman made "gestures when she got back to the house, would be, not to split hairs, but to split splits of hairs. It and had lost her powers of speech; and you admit these follows, therefore, that, to make my supposed misstatement gestures for your own guidance, and by their aid reject her at all material, I must have erred in two points-in assumwords when tendered for the guidance of the jury. I should ing, first, that the murderer was pursuing his victim, when have thought that the experiences of this very trial might he was really lying half dead in the house, and next, that have led you to be more cautious. The man also, when the woman, when she made her statement, well knew found, being unable to speak, made "gestures;" the that fact. Unless both these points be decided against surgeon says, "frantic endeavours to make him understand me, my verdict must stand. Let us then consider what something,' and a policeman gives similar testimony, facts bearing on these two points were proved at the saying that he made signs, and pointed to his breasttrial, or could reasonably be inferred from other facts pocket, and pointed upstairs, and to the partition. And that were proved. First, what evidence is there that when what was the result of these gestures, signs, and pointthe woman left the house the man was lying in the ings? The doctor could not comprehend them, and front room with his throat cut? I bave read the report of the officer, after three ineffectual attempts to do so, gave the the trial most carefully, and I do not find a single word matter up in despair, and acknowledged-no slight admission which either directly affirms such to have been the case, or for a policeman to make-that "he could not tell what wasindirectly raises an inference to that effect. No one was in meant." But a Lord Chief Justice is not so easily baffled. the house when the deed was committed; no one saw the You at least have found a key to Mrs. Rudd's gestures, and murderer after the wound was inflicted, until the deceased when "showing her throat she pointed to the room in which was brought home, and placed in the back room. There is the prisoner lay," the mystery in your judgment was at oncean entire gap in the evidence between the scream which folcleared up. The woman meant-no doubt of it-that the lowed the wound and the return of the woman to the house. man had cut her throat in that room; that she bad afterwards Whether the murderer, as soon as he had struck his victim, waited patiently to see him cut his own, and fall to the attempted, or feigned to attempt, his own life, or whether he ground; that she had next ascertained he was hors de combat strove to complete on her the crime which he had bunglingly and incapable of pursuing her; that she therefore knew she begun, and which he was only prevented from accomplishing had nothing further to fear from him; that the fright she on the spot by her flight, or whether he remained stupified exhibited was not real alarm, as she had no ground for it; at first, till, seeing that detection was rendered inevitable by and that she then "came "-I must not say ran-out of the her escape, he determined to commit or sham self-murder, house "engaged in obtaining assistance, not to protect her must ever remain a sealed mystery. We may fancy, or against any further violence, but with reference to her imagine, or conjecture, what we will, but of proof we wound." Why, if her gestures meant all this, Lord Burleigh's have not what lawyers call a "scintilla"; and this famous "nod was a jest to them! in itself is amply sufficient to justify me in questioning your statement at page 8, that the deceased "had left the assailant lying in her front room with his throat cut." True, you assert very positively at page 22 that "Bedingfield, having inflicted a wound on Mrs. Rudd, which he expected would prove mortal, proceeded to cut his own throat with the full intention of suicide, and having

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But it is possible that, after all, I may be considered wrong on this point, and I now therefore, for the sake of the argument, will assume that your lordship was right in drawing the inference that Mrs. Rudd, when she left the house, knew that her assailant could do her no further harm, and that she went out for the sole purpose of getting her throat bound up. Taking these to be the real facts, I still contend

that, according to decided cases and principle, the exclamation ought to have been received as part of the res gesta. In the two cases referred to in my first letter R. v. Foster and Thomson v. Trevanion-the declarations made immediately after the injury were received, though in neither was the declarant in any apprehension of impending violence." You observe and rightlythat I have relied on these cases as decisions of unquestioned authority, and you tell me that, in so doing, I have been greatly mistaken.

How stands the case of R. v. Foster now, regarded as an authority? I find it cited as an unshaken decision by Starkie, Phillipps, Roscoe, Archbold, Goodeve, Norton, and last, though not least, by Mr. Justice J. Fitzjames Stephen, in his able digest on the Law of Evidence. On searching the reports I cannot find that it has ever been questioned by a single judge from the year 1834, when it was decided, down to the present time, and I feel tolerably confident that if any case had shaken its authority, your lordship's industry and zeal would have disinterred the dictum. Unless, therefore, it be knocked on the head by the youthful censure of Mr. Markby, or by your lordship's powerful artillery, that case, together with Thompson v. Trevanion, which was decided on the same principle by Lord Holt, must still remain as safe illustrations of an important rule of evidence when rightly understood.

You regret that I have not favoured you with the other authorities alluded to in my letter. Without my aid you found one of them, R. v. Lunny (not R. v. Lunnun, as you cite it), which was reported by the late Mr. Cox in the sixth volume of his Criminal Cases, p. 477, and was decided by Monahan, C.J., in 1854. I could have wished that you had dealt with that authority in a less cavalier style. First, apparently oblivious of the fact that you had in your letter severely lectured "young Tyro" for being misled by the marginal note of a report-"when he has acquired more experience, he will know better "-you take no step to protect the public from being misled in a similar manner. Nay, you improve upon Tyro's practice by quoting and turning into ridicule, not the whole "summary," but a mere extract from it, and then leaving the remaining portion, which showed what the reporter meant, wholly unnoticed. Here is the passage that you have omitted: "The deceased had died from the effects of a wound in his head inflicted with a stick. A girl in the neighbourhood had heard a cry, and, coming out, had found the deceased stand ing with his cap in his hand, and apparently weak and injured. The deceased did not survive more than a few hours. Held, the statement made by deceased to the witness immediately on her coming up, complaining of the injury, was admissible in evidence, being part of the res gesta.' What becomes now of the assertion that, if the marginal note correctly represented the law, "statements made many hours after the occurrence might be treated as part of the res gesta"? Why is this unfounded onslaught made on Mr. Cox? Was it to wound the learned judge through the ribs of the reporter? If not, what object could be gained in alluding to him? What could it signify whether he had stated the law rightly or wrongly? The question was whether Monahan, C.J., had understood the law and properly applied it. And here, again, you have not stated the result of the trial with your usual accuracy. You say that the deceased asserted he had been "robbed by the prisoner." This is not correct-what he did say was that he had been "robbed by the man who walked with him from the cross-roads." This was a very different statement, and if the question of personal identity was in any way involved in the trial, the difference was one of material importance. Then what was the ruling of the judge with respect to the contemporaneous character of the statement? On objection being taken to its admissibility, the witness, in reply to a question from the court, said, "The moment I came up to him he spoke to me." It was then, and not till then, that "his lordship ruled that what the deceased said was evidence as part of the res gesta,"-and whatever doubts your lordship, or the learned editor of the las edition of Russell on Crimes, may entertain on the subject, I respectfully maintain that the decision is perfectly sound law. It was acquiesced in at the time, for the prisoner was convicted, and no attempt was made

to save him from punishment; and it has never been impugned, to my knowledge, by any judge since. The next case to which I will draw your lordship's notice is, as I understand it, a very important one. You will find it reported as R. v. Megson (9 C. & P. 420.) It was tried before Lord Cranworth, as careful and sensible a judge as ever sate in a criminal court. Three men were indicted for rape upon a woman who had since died. She had, as soon as she returned home after the outrage, given a detailed account of what had happened to her. It was sought to put in evidence these details, but the judge very properly decided that they could not be received. "The object," said he, "in this case is to give in evidence the particulars of the complaint as independent evidence, with the view of showing who were the persons that committed the offence. This cannot be done." He then added these words, to which I crave your special attention : -"All that can safely be received is, in my opinion, her complaint that a dreadful outrage had been perpetrated upon her." Here, then, we have the deliberate opinion of a sound lawyer that, for the purpose of disproving consent, as contradistinguished from the object of establishing identity, the woman's statements may be received. They relate to a matter respecting which the speaker is not open to any mistake. They are—if uttered immediately or very shortly after the event-the natural outpourings of a spirit humbled by a degrading assault; they are the usual expression of feelings in relation to an occurrence or res, which has just happened, and which occurrence is the subject of judicial inquiry; and as such they are original evidence and indisputably admissible. I am loath to refer again to my own work, but you will find the subject treated, and attempted to be illustrated and explained, in § 580 of my last edition.

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Let us, then, with the light afforded by Lord Cranworth's judgment, see how the matter stands with respect to Mrs. Rudd's statement. The question to be tried was not whether Bedingfield, or Jones, or Styles had committed the murder. Had such been the issue, your lordship, in conformity with the case of R. v. Megson, should have rejected, not the whole statement of the woman, but merely Bedingfield's name. Her exclamation, as admitted, would then have ran thus:-"Oh aunt, see what has been done to me," instead of "Oh aunt, see what Bedingfield has done to me." Bedingfield's name would have been withheld because, first, it had nothing to do with the question how her throat came to be cut, and next it was a matter in which the most truthful person could easily have been mistaken. And a judge, in the exercise of a sound discretion, might well come to the conclusion that, without the test afforded by cross-examination, such statement of recognition could not safely be admitted. But in the trial before your lordship no such question arose. The simple point to be decided was whether Mrs. Rudd's throat had been cut by herself or by Bedingfield. Surely, on such an issue, it was most material to ascertain, if possible, what both parties had said at the time of the infliction of the wound, or immediately before, or immediately after. The rejected statement was made directly after the principal event; it illustrated that event in a striking manner; it was the natural expression of the woman's feelings at the time; it was the strongest evidence that she had not cut her own throat; and in Lord Cranworth's forcible language it was "a complaint that a dreadful outrage had been perpetrated upon her." I cannot under these circumstances-notwithstanding the high authority of yourself and Mr. Justice Cresswell, supported as you are by two judges and two editors-entertain a doubt that Mrs. Rudd's statement was admissible in evidence, and ought, if pressed by the counsel for the prosecution, to have been received.

I might here add a cloud of other authorities illustrative of the principle which I have undertaken to support. But I refrain; for, if your lordship is not convinced by the four cases I have already cited, neither would you be persuaded though I brought to your notice a dozen more. As to Mr Justice Cresswell's supposed decision in R. v. Osborne, all I need here observe is, that, to my mind at least, the language put into the judge's mouth is so grotesquely indecent, and so curiously illogical, that I decline to comment upon it further than to express my surprise that you should have used it up as your forlorn hope.

You ask me whether I approve of the American decisions on the subject of res gesta, to which you have referred in

your letter, and I answer, without hesitation, that I do not. As exponents of the English law, they seem to me to err as far on one side of the true line of demarcation as your lordship has erred on the other.

"But deriving no assistance from the writers on this branch of the law," you have magnanimously determined to assume the province of the anthor, and "to solve the difficulty by your own efforts." If anyone could have succeeded in such an undertaking you were the man, and I only wish I could honestly congratulate you on your success. I have read the twenty lines of your definition, th an earnest desire to derive enlightenment from them, but I confess, that after the perusal I have found myself enveloped in a fog, dense as that by which I am now, as I write, surrounded. I can perceive that you intend to exclude the statement in question, but I read that "what may be said by the suffering party" "in the case of flight or applications for assistance, forms part of the principal transaction, and may be given in evidence." If this be a correct definition, and there is any meaning in words, cadit questio; for undoubtedly the woman, when she made her exclamation, was in flight or applying for assistance. But I read on, and I find in a subsequent page that your "flight" has a peculiar significance, and that your "assistance" is of a limited character quite different from what is the ordinary meaning of the word. Here then are definitions upon definitions, till the mind becomes bewildered and abandons the explanation in despair. I turn again to your first definition, and I learn that statements made by the complaining party, after all action on the part of the wrongdoer has ceased, "with a view to the apprehension of the offender," must be excluded. If that be so, a cry of "stop thief" forms no part of the res gesta; and if the pickpocket, when taken, declares that the purse found upon him was given to him by the loser of it, that plausible story must go to the jury without the antidote afforded by the proof of the cry. This-which I may fairly describe as a reductio ad absurdum-appears to flow inevitably from the words used; but I hesitate to express a clear opinion respecting your lordship's meaning, as I find in a passage, when you are quizzing the learned American professor, you conjure up the vision of a thief, running away with your purse, and your calling to a policeman to tell him you have been robbed by the man who is disappearing in the distance. Here you obviously mean to imply that your statement to the policeman would form part of the res gesta. In the midst of these counter-illustrations I remain much in the same state as the poor peace-officer who had to interpret the "frantic gestures of Bedingfield; and all that I have learned is that Dr. Greenleaf was not far wrong when he observed that it was "difficult, if not impossible, to bring this class of cases within the limits of a more particular description." The phrase "res gesta" does not stand alone in this respect; but many more legal terms-as, for example-"surrounding circumstances when applied to a res inter alios acta," "reasonable diligence or skill," ," "negligence," and a score of other expressions, must be left unfettered by useless definitions, and be determined in each case, either by the judge or the jury, in the exercise of a sound discretion.

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Appointments, Etc.

Mr. HENRY CONNOR, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Colony of Natal, has received the honour of Knighthood. Sir H. Connor is an LL.B. of Trinity College, Dublin, and he was called to the bar in Ireland in 1839. He was appointed Chief Justice of the Gold Coast in 1854, and acted for several months as governor of that settlement. He was appointed a pui-ne judge of the Supreme Court of Natal in 1864, and Chief Justice of the colony in 1874. He is also a member of the Executive Council of Natal and judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court.

Mr. E. G. DAVIES, of Crickhowell, in the county of Brecon, has been appointed a Commissioner to administer Oaths.

Mr. J. PERRY GODFREY, of Gray's-inn, solicitor, has been appointed a Commissioner to receive Affidavits to be used in any Court of Record in the Province of Quebec. Mr. Godfrey was admitted in Trinity Term, 1860, and is a

commissioner to examine witnesses and take acknowledg ments of deeds for the Australian colonies, and is also a colonial agent.

Mr. ANDREW JOHNSTON, has been elected one of the Chairmen of Quarter Sessions for the County of Essex, in succession to Mr. Richard Wingfield Baker, resigned.

Mr. HENRY LATHAM, solicitor, of Congleton, has been elected Clerk to the Congleton School Board. Mr. Latham was admitted a solicitor in 1870.

Mr. GEORGE MUMFORD, solicitor, of Sudbury, has been elected Clerk to the Magistrates for that borough, in succession to Mr. Joseph Scott, resigned. Mr. Mumford was

admitted a solicitor in 1862.

Mr. ROBERT WILLIAM SPOTTIS WOODE PINKEY, barrister, has been appointed to act as Government Pleader and Public Prosecutor at Karachi. Mr. Pinkey is a graduate of University College, Oxford, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's-inn in November, 1877.

Mr. RICHARD MONTAGU PRESTON, and Mr. FRANCIS VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS, have been appointed joint Registrars of the Wrexham and Llangollen County Courts (Circuit, No. 29, Horatio Lloyd, Esq., judge), in succession to the late Mr. Augustus Henry Reid. Mr. Preston is a solicitor of twenty-five years' standing, and is local solicitor to the London and North-Western Railway. Mr. VaughanWilliams, who is the son of the late judge of the above circuit, was admitted in 1878, and has acted as deputyregistrar of the above courts since the date of his admission.

Mr. JOHN DOUGLAS SANDFORD, barrister, has been appointed Inspector of Prisons at Mysore. Mr. Sandford was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, where he graduated first class in Literæ Humaniores in 1855. He was called to judicial commissioner for Mysore and Coorg. the bar at the Inner Temple in Trinity Term, 1870, and is

Mr. THOMAS SLANEY, solicitor, of Newcastle-under-Lyme, has been appointed Registrar of the Newcastle County Court (Circuit No. 26), on the resignation of his father, Mr. Robert Slaney. Mr. T. Slaney was admitted a solicitor in Trinity Term, 1873.

Mr. GEORGE SOMES, barrister, has been elected Chairman of the Second Court at the Surrey Sessions, in succession to the late Mr. William Frederick Harrison, is an M.A. of Worcester College, Oxford. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's-inn in Michaelmas Term, 1871, and has practised on the Midland Circuit.

Mr. MATTHEW WILLIAM THOMPSON, barrister, has been elected Chairman of the Midland Railway Company. Mr. Thompson is the eldest son of Mr. Matthew Thompson, of Manningham Lodge, Yorkshire, and he was born in 1820. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in Michaelmas Term, 1846.

Mr. SAMUEL TILLEY, solicitor (of the firm of Tilley & Soames), of 10, Finsbury-place South, has been appointed a Commissioner to administer Oaths in the Supreme Court of

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