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THE CHANCERY VACATION BUSINESS grows with great rapidity. In the year 1870 the vacation orders made by the Court of Chancery numbered about 117. During the vacation of 1879 the Chancery Division made about 850 orders, or more than seven times as many as were made ten years ago. The number of these orders has been gradually increasing from year to year, and one great cause of this increase lies in the fact that the books of the Chancery Paymaster are now open all the year round, and there is no interval of time when an order may not be carried into his office.

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THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, Sir John Holker, M.P., owing to the pressure of important official work, has decided to limit his private practice these sittings, and has been obliged to return some briefs.

Twenty gentlemen were called to the bar on Monday in Dublin, the largest number at one call for many years.

It is stated that, in consequence of the advocates in the Italian town of Cagliari having declined to accept any longer the rate of emolument hitherto prevailing, judicial business has been brought for a time to a standstill, and the Minister of Justice has decided to remove the cases at present pending in the Cagliari courts to the Roman tribunals."

At the Nottingham Assizes, on the 7th inst., before Mr. Justice Lush, Philip Charles Duff was charged with having indorsed false statements on a number of county court summonses. Prisoner had been employed as a bailiff at the Nottingham County Court, and had been intrusted with a large number of copies of summonses to serve upon the persons against whom they were issued. He afterwards indorsed the original summonses which were kept in the office of the court, to the effect that the copies had been so served. On the cases being called before the court the defendants did not appear, and judgment was given against them. It was then discovered that they had never received the summonses, and the prisoner, on being questioned by the high bailiff, admitted that his indorsements were untrue. He had failed to deliver as many as sixty-three summonses, the originals of which he had indorsed as served. He pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment.

In opening the Commission for the Winter Assize County No. 7, which comprises the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and the city of Norwich, the Lord Chief Justice, in the course of his charge to the grand jury, animadverted upon the fact that many of the cases could have been tried at quarter sessions, and pointed out the inconvenience which arose from thus withdrawing the judges from their important duties in town for the trial of such cases. The grand jury, at the close of their labours, made a presentment on the subject:-"The grand jury concur in his lordship's remarks that the calendar has been unnecessarily incumbered with cases which ought to have been reserved for trial at quarter sessions." The Lord Chief Justice said he was glad to have the concurrence of gentlemen so familiar with the adminis tration of criminal justice in the remarks which he had made on the subject. While it was desirable, as he concurred in thinking it was, that prisoners should not be kept for trial longer than was consistent with public convenience, yet, on the other hand, as to cases of such a character that they could be well disposed of at quarter sessions, the judges ought not to have their time taken up in the trial of such cases, being thus withdrawn from their important duties in town, and thus delaying the general administration of justice.

CAN THERE BE A CONTRACT OF THE EXISTENCE OF WHICH ONE OF THE SUPPOSED CONTRACTING PARTIES NEITHER KNOWS NOR IS BOUND TO KNOW?

I.

THE case of The Household Fire Insurance Company v. Grant (27 W. R. 858, L. R. 4 Ex. D. 216) raised a point of great importance with regard to the principle involved. Somewhat similar questions have at various times come before the courts, and we doubt whether the law on the subject can even now be considered as definitely settled, the more so that Bramwell, L.J., dissented from the opinion of the court. We must confess to entertaining a very strong opinion that, whatever the law may be, the common sense of the matter is clear, and that the view expressed by Bramwell, L.J., is consistent with reason and justice. The majority of the court (Baggallay and Thesiger, L.JJ.) seem to have considered the matter concluded by authority.

The point was briefly this. The defendant applied for shares in the plaintiff company. The company allotted the shares to the defendant and duly addressed to him, and posted, a letter containing the notice of allotment, but the letter never was received by him. It was held by the majority of the Court of Appeal that the defendant was a shareholder, overruling British and American Telegraph Company v. Colson (L. R. 6 Ex. 108). The case which was considered to be a conclusive authority on the point was Dunlop v. Higgins (1 H. L. C. 381). There has been a good deal of discussion in this class of cases as to when the contract, if any, is concluded, and at what period the aggregatio mentium is complete. It has been said, if the contract is not complete upon the letter accepting the offer being despatched, when is it complete? If knowledge by the offeror of the acceptance of the offer is necessary to complete the contract, it would follow that knowledge by the acceptor of the fact that the acceptance has been communicated to the offeror may be necessary, and so on ad infinitum, so that there never can be an aggregatio mentium, the parties being apart and not being capable of simultaneous expression of agreement. Such is the argument employed in Dunlop v. Higgins.

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We cannot help thinking that, under cover of loosemetaphysical expressions and ideas such as aggregatio mentium," a good deal of unnecessary perplexity is sometimes introduced. It seems to us that there may be a lurking fallacy in the notion that an aggregatio mentium necessarily constitutes a contract in the legal sense of the term, arising from an absence of distinct idea of the meaning in which the term aggregatio mentium is used. It is generally necessary to a contract, no doubt; but " contract as used in this relation means obligation binding in law. There is sometimes a contract without any aggregatio mentium at all. One party may not have meant the same as the other all along; and yet there may be a contract. The real question is, When does the contract become legally obl gatory on the party sought to be charged ?-not till then does it become a contract in any efficient legal sense of the term. It seems to us possible that the aggregatio mentium may in some cases be antecedent to the time when the contract becomes binding on the offeror, though, of course, this depends somewhat on what is meant by aggregatio mentium. We should say the only practical meaning of the term is assent of two minds to the same terms. Of course, if it is merely the Latin for " contract the whole question is begged.

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In this point of view we do not see any such very great difficulty as has been suggested in supposing that the contract by the offeror does not arise until the acceptance has been communicated to him. The party accepting knows that he has accepted and has taken steps to communicate his acceptance; it may be said that, therefore, he ought to be bound unless and until he ascertains that the mode of communication he took failed; he is

not entitled to say that there is no contract until the other party has received the communication. He knows of the aggregatio mentium; the other party by hypothesis does not. The question really seems to resolve itself into this: can a party be bound by a contract of which he does not know, and ex hypothesi may be unable to know, the existence? In other words, can a man have promised in the legal sense without knowing that he has promised? If it be correct that the contract is completely binding directly the letter of acceptance is despatched, then, assuming some cause that should absolutely prevent the delivery of the letter, the contract nevertheless is good. One cannot understand any principle on which a person ignorant of the existence of the aggregatio mentium is to be affected by the same legal obligation as if he knew of it, except on the ground of laches on his part or that of his agent.

And here comes in a very remarkable point in the discussion. There seems to have been some such train of reasoning present to the minds of the judges in the various cases; and those who maintain the view of the majority in the case we are discussing seek to make the post office the agent of the party to whom the letter is sent. We cannot understand this as a plain matter of fact. It is the plain truth that the post office is the agent of the sender, so far as it is agent of either party, and it seems to us the extreme of far-fetched theory to treat the postman as a messenger sent by the offeror of the proposal to bring back the answer. There was some talk in Dunlop v. Higgins of the usage of trade, and of implied authority to return an answer by post when the offeror must have contemplated an answer by post. With all respect for the eminent persons who used these expressions, if we must call a spade a spade, we should not call them good sense. People communicate by post because it is convenient in all the relations of life. There is no usage of trade that if a person replies by post it shall be sufficient acceptance, nor is there any implied authority in the matter. Any implied authority in the sense of the term "implied" for which we have always strenuously contended-viz., any such authority actually in the necessary contemplation of the parties' minds-there clearly is not. Can any sane person suppose that a person writing for an allotment of shares really means in his own mind that he is making the post office his agent in the sense that delivery of an answer to the post office is delivery of an answer to him? Surely not. We are confident that if the case were put in any company there would not be a single person, not a lawyer, who would not exclaim at the injustice of making a person a shareholder in a company without his knowledge because a letter had been posted which had never reached him.

Then, with regard to implication of authority by law, such an implication may be made when natural justice or convenience dictates it; as when of two parties, both innocent and unfortunate, one has conduced to the mischief more than the other, for instance where a person held out as a general agent has exceeded his actual authority. But we want to know why the offeror is to be held to take upon himself the risks of the post office? We should have thought it a truism to say that that person must bear the risks of the post for whose convenience it has been employed. I receive an offer of a contract: assume it to have come by post. The party sending it would have suffered if the post had failed, so far as the offer not reaching me is concerned, because the means of communication he employed would have failed. It is just as if he had shouted to me from a distance, but the distance being too great, or his voice being weak, the purport of what he said had never reached me. Why should there be any difference in this respect with regard

to the answer?

But assuming, in some way or other, an offer to have come to me; it is immaterial how. I have to accept the contract if I wish to do so, and notify my acceptance. If I sent a messenger of my own, clearly I should take

the risk of his failure. Why should I be placed in a different position because, for my own convenience, I employ the public message carrier? The case of notice of dishonour of negotiable instruments does not seem to us conclusive, or, indeed, in reality, at all analogous. The true rule on that subject may be, not that the holder is bound to give notice of dishonour in the sense that the notice must reach the prior indorser, but that he ought to take reasonable means to inform him of the dishonour, which reasonable means, by usage of trade, are so-andSo. It is obvious that this question is wholly different from the question whether a man can be bound by a contract which, ex hypothesi, he cannot know to exist. It seems to us, as we have before said, that a fallacy may have crept in in this way, viz., that it has been assumed that the contract is necessarily complete in the sense that there must be a contract legally binding both parties directly the aggregatio mentium (by which we mean merely the agreement of the two minds as to terms) is complete. If aggregatio mentium constitutes a contract, and merely means the assent of two minds to certain terms evidenced by overt acts on both sides, clearly it would be sufficient if the party to whom the offer was made wrote an assent and never sent it at all, but, intending to post it, dropped it into some hole which was not a letter-box by mistake. This shows either that aggregatio mentium is not complete without communication of it, or that aggregatio mentium alone will not constitute a contract. This is in effect what Bramwell, L.J., says when he lays down the proposition that assent to the proposal or acceptance is not enough, but there must be communication of the assent to the proposer. This being so, in order to make the posting of the letter such a communication, you must make the post office the agent of the offeror, which, for the reasons above given, seems to us contrary to plain facts and justice.

We feel doubtful whether the best expression of the rule is as the Lord Justice lays it down, though, for the purpose for which he used it, the definition was sound enough. It does not seem to us clear that the contract does not arise until the communication of the acceptance of the proposition reaches the offeror. Suppose the letter came to the address he gave, but he had gone out of town without making provision for having his letters forwarded? It seems to us that if the offer is accepted the contract becomes binding on the offeror if the acceptance would have been communicated to him but for his own default, assuming, of course, that the communication would have been in time. We believe that on a thorough analysis it would appear that the true question in these cases is-assuming that there would have been a contract if the acceptance of the proposal had been known to the proposer-Whose fault is it that he did not know? We doubt whether it can be solved by a general rule. It seems to us that the circumstances might vary greatly, and in some cases there might be sufficient to make it the offeror's duty to inquire further as to the fate of his proposal; but generally it would lie on the acceptor of it to insure his acceptance being made known. We propose on a future occasion to make a few observations with regard to the authorities on this subject, and also as to the supposed difficulties that would arise from holding that the contract is not complete till the offeror knows or ought to know of it.

The Scottish Journal of Jurisprudence records the death of Mr. James Maidment, the oldest member of the Faculty of Advocates. He was called to the Scottish bar in 1817, and was an intimate friend of the late Mr. Riddell, and after first advocate in Scotland in cases involving genealogical his death he is said to have taken the position of being the inquiries. He published in 1840 "Reports of Claims preferred to the House of Lords in the Cases of Cassilis, Sutherland, Spynie, and Glencairn Peerages," and at a later period took a specially prominent position in the Mar Peerage

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FARM LEASES.

I.

AMONG the results of the "agricultural depression " not the least noticeable is the change in the terms of farm leases. After remaining almost wholly unaffected by the progress of agricultural science, these contracts have suddenly yielded to the pressure of hard times. Restrictions formerly deemed essential to the protection of land from deterioration are now not unfrequently omitted, and in some cases the whole structure of the tenant's covenants is changed. It may be anticipated that before long the common forms of farm leases, thumbed by a long succession of articled clerks in solicitors' offices, and the printed agreements for particular estates handed down from one agent to another, will have to be remodelled. It may be useful to review the process by which these forms have been built up, and afterwards to consider the direction which the impending changes are likely to take.

The early English farm lease was remarkable for the absence of covenants relating to the mode of cultivation. In one of the earliest forms given in Madox it is simply provided that the landlord or his heirs shall receive back the land at the end of the term in the same state, or a better state, than that in which the tenant took it, and a like covenant is to be found in another lease made in the reign of Henry II. A somewhat similar provision occurs in a lease dated 1410, given in Cullum's History of Hawstead, p. 225, where the tenant covenants to leave at the end of the lease as many acres as well ploughed, sowed, and manured, as he received at the beginning of the lease.

But by the time of Henry VIII. even this provision seems to have disappeared; for in a lease made by that monarch, under the seal of the Court of Wards, of divers messuages and lands of one of the King's wards," the lessee simply covenants that he "nor his assigns shall do, nor suffer to be doon, any voluntary waste or spoyle of the said messuages, howses, or other the premises and if any wilful waste be doon or encroachment of any landes be made, to the prejudyce of the inheritance of the said heyre, that then the said [lessee] and his assyns as moche as in him and them lyeth shall withstande and defende the same." In a lease dated 1572, given by Cullum (p. 230), it is provided that the tenant may put into tillage all the pasture-grounds except the borders, where the timber grew, but he must lay all the arable land to pasture one whole year before the end of the lease. At this time the scarcity of timber led to stringent restrictions in farm leases as to felling or lopping trees.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century we find specific provisions made as to the mode of cultivation. In a form of farm lease for twenty-one years given in West's Symboleography (part 2, section 432), published in 1606, the tenant covenants not during the term to "harry or break up any part or parcel" of certain lands without consent, and to bestow the dung yearly on the arable land, and it is provided that he and his executors and assigns "shall and may sow any of the said arable land belonging to the said premises two years together during the said term, and not above, and after that let the same lands lie one year fallow." Fifty years later these covenants seem to have been disregarded, for a lease of lands, given in a book of precedents published in 1655, contains no covenants as to cultivation. A usual covenant in farm leases throughout this century imposed a restriction on the kind of cattle to be turned out to graze in woodlands.

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By the end of the seventeenth century we find covenants as to cultivation in ordinary use. The Scriveners' Guide, published in 1695, gives, in the general form of lease of a farm," covenants by the tenant to leave "20 acres of the arable land in a wheat Formulare Anglicanum, 135. † Ib., 141. The Perfect Conveyancer, p. 322.

lane [sic], fit to be sown with wheat in the next year after the end of the term hereby granted"; to inbarn all corn, hay, &c., on the premises; to expend dung on the demised lands and not elsewhere; to leave the dung on the land at the end of the term, and to pay an increased rent for every acre of meadow ploughed up. And in Sheppard's "President of Presidents" (3rd ed., published in 1704), there is, at p. 153, a form of agricultural lease, which, besides several of the above-mentioned covenants, provides that the tenant may "plough any of the arable land on the demised premises two years together and not above, and after that shall let the same be one year fallow." But this provision does not appear in other precedents of the period; and conparing the forms in these collections with those contained in "The Modern Conveyancer"-a work of about the same date-it would appear that the ordinary farm lease at the beginning of the eighteenth century restricted the removal of straw and dung from the demised premises; imposed increased rent on ploughing meadow land, and sometimes gave the landlord the right to enter on the farm during the last year of the term in order to plough and prepare for the next year's crop. It appears from Cullum (p. 249) that about the middle of the last century leases were granted requiring the tenant to leave one-third of the arable land ploughed and fallowed for wheat, the out-going tenant to be paid for the labour according to the custom of the country.

We come now to the end of the last century, when "Wood's Conveyancing" was in vogue. This work contains a wonderful variety of precedents of leases; and as by 1793 it had reached a 5th edition, it may be taken as affording an accurate idea of the prevalent farm lease. At page 88 of vol. 2 there is the form of lease of a farm "with a variety of good covenants." We find the old covenants as to the expenditure of hay, straw, and dung on the premises, and the increased rent on ploughing meadow land; but in addition to these there are, for the first time inserted, provisions binding the tenant to sow a certain number of acres with clover every year; to leave every year half of the arable land unsown as a summer fallow, and not to mow certain specified land. In another collection of precedents of about the same date (Newnam's Complete Conveyancer) we find (p. 133) a covenant that the tenant shall use the land "according to the order and course of good husbandry," and after every second and third crops of corn sow the same with grass, clover, or turnip seed. And from the other precedents of farm leases contained in these volumes, it may be gathered that at the beginning of the present century the ordinary farm lease, in addition to the older restrictions, bound the tenant after a second corn crop either to leave the land in fallow or to lay it down with grass. As regards the terms of quitting, the provisions vary. In some leases the tenant is allowed to hold the arable land, or a part of it, until after the harvest following the end of the term, and the barns for a year after the end of the term; but in other leases the tenant is bound at the end of the term to have certain parts of the land sown with wheat, the landlord providing the seed only. Provisions for compensation or allowances to the outgoing tenant do not appear in these leases.

Most cotton trade-mark owners, says the London correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, especially those who produce for the Eastern markets, have for some time past been anxious that the exclusive right to protection in this country which they acquire under the new Act should be extended to the Indian Empire. The Bombay Chamber of Commerce having given their co-operation to the furtherance of this project, the Government of Bombay have drawn up a Bill to cover the whole of British India, and which will, if passed, come into effect on the 1st day of January next. The Bill establishes a registry of trade-marks for the empire, and in nearly every respect corresponds, mutatis mutandis, with the Act which was lately passed for the mother country.

Recent Decisions.

BENEFIT OF RESTRICTIVE COVENANTS.

(Renals v. Cowlishaw, C.A., 28 W. R. 9.)

The law as to the devolution of the burden of restrictive covenants is, of course, clearly settled. All who take under the original covenantor with notice of the -covenant are bound by it, for "if an equity is attached to property by the owner, no one purchasing with notice of that equity can stand in a different situation from the person from whom he purchased.”

But the law as to the devolution of the benefit of a restrictive covenant has been left in a less certain condition. The authorities, however, before Renals v. Cowlishaw, pointed at the doctrine that the assign of the covenantee could not enforce a restrictive covenant unless he had either expressly stipulated for the benefit of the covenant, or had contracted under such circumstances that he must be deemed to have so stipulated. That is to say, as Mr. Dart has put it, restrictive covenants are not in the nature of a reservation to the vendor, devolving on his subsequent purchasers as attached to the property, but when enforceable in equity by an assign they are so enforceable as depending entirely on the contractand intention of the parties. In order to enable the assign of the covenantee to enforce such covenants there must be either an agreement between vendor and new purchaser, giving to the latter the benefit of the covenant, or some kind of representation by the vendor to the new purchaser that the latter should have the benefit of the covenant. The question as to representation usually arises on the sale of an estate laid out under a building scheme. In this case a representation or intention that each purchaser should be bound by certain covenants, and should have the benefit of such covenants against other purchasers, is easily made out; and it may probably be said that practically in these cases, although all the covenants are made with the vendor, one covenantor may obtain the benefit of them as against another covenantor.

In Renals v. Cowlishaw there was no circumstance of this kind, but it was contended that, inasmuch as the intention of the parties is the test, a restrictive covenant taken by the owner of a residential estate from a purchaser from him of lands adjacent to the residential estate must be deemed to have been taken for the benefit of the residential estate, so as to enable an assign of part of that estate to maintain an action on the covenant. But the answer to this contention was furnished by Lord Justice Bramwell, when he said, in Master v. Hansard (25 W. R. 570, L. R. 4 Ch. D. 718), that the covenant was "put in, not for the benefit of the particular property, but for the benefit of the [owners], to enable them to make the most of the property which they retained; and both Hall, V.C., and the Court of Appeal held that the purchaser of part of the residential estate could not maintain an action to restrain the breach of the restrictive covenant. The practical lesson of the case is the -desirability in all cases where there is ground for thinking that in former dealings restrictive covenants were taken of including in the conveyance the benefit of any restrictive covenants with reference to the use of adjacent lands.

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The benchers of the Middle Temple have appropriated a set of chambers under the library to be used as a subscription common room. There will be reading, writing, and smoking rooms, and newspapers, magazines, and books of reference will be supplied.

Persons connected with the Temple, the new Law Courts, and in the neighbourhood generally, will be interested to learn that the premises No. 43, Fleet-street, opposite Fetterlane, lately occupied by Messrs. Eyre & Spottiswoode, are in <course of reconstruction as a branch post-office on a considerble scale.

General Correspondence.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.-All letters intended for publication in the "Solicitors' Journal" must be authenticated by the name of the writer. The Editor cannot undertake to return MSS. forwarded to him.

AFFIDAVITS OF SERVICE IN DISTRICT REGISTRIES.

[To the Editor of the Solicitors' Journal.] Sir,-It having come to the notice of various members of our local law society that differences existed in the district registries respecting affidavits of service, and that certain forms that were satisfactory in some registries were rejected in others, I was directed, as secretary, to make inquiries in the different registries on the point, and the following four questions were put to each registry:

1. How is the description of the solicitor's clerk who serves a writ inserted in the affidavits passed in your registry? Is it sufficient to describe him as "A. B., clerk with Messrs. C. D., of Sheffield, solicitors"?

2. In what way is the service on one of the partners of a firm sued as, e.g., "C. Smith & Co.," shown on an affidavit accepted in your registry?

3. The like question when the writ is served on a manager.

4. Do you consider it necessary to insert the words "within the jurisdiction" when the action is brought in the usual way, not under the Bills Act?

The circular was sent to seventy-one registries, and answers were received from forty. It was found from these answers that hardly any one of the registries agreed with any other registry in giving the same answers to the circular. The method in which the Sheffield Registry would require the affidavit to be worded was shown on the circular, and appears below, and the answers showed that

On question 1, eighteen registries agreed with, twentytwo differed from, Sheffield;

On question 2, twenty-eight agreed with, six differed from, Sheffield;

7-seven agreed with, five differed

On question 3, twenty-s from, Sheffield;

And on question 4, eight agreed with, thirty-two differed from, Sheffield.

As the matter is of considerable importance, affidavits being often only filed on the last day, and alterations requiring some two days to effect, the committee sanctioned my laying this matter before the legal public in the shape of a letter inviting any correspondence on the subject. In order to put this more clearly, I have added at the foot a form of affidavit of service, showing the parts in which all are agreed, and in italics the portions in which disagreements occur, but, as put before you, the affidavit is in such a form as would be accepted in the Sheffield Registry.

HERBERT BRAMLEY,

Hon. Sec. Sheffield District Incorporated Law Society.

,

Sheffield, Nov., 1879. The method in which the above questions are answered in the Sheffield Registry: "1. I, A. B., of, &c., clerk to Mr. of the same place, solicitor. 2. A. B., one of the partners in the firm of C. Smith & Co., the above-named defendants. 3. At (place of service), being the principal place of business of the partnership of C. Smith & Co., personally served A. B., the person having at the time of such service the control and management of the partnership there." 4. The words "within the jurisdiction" are here inserted.

In the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, Sheffield District Registry.-Between John Jones, plaintiff, and C. Smith & Co., defendants.-I, A. B., of, &c. (full address), clerk to Mr. •, of the same place

authority to the contrary. The court (JAMES, Baggallay, and THESIGER, L.JJ.) held that the application was properly made to the Court of Appeal. And they made the usual order staying proceedings, except that the costs were to be taxed and paid to the respondent's solicitor, he undertaking to refund them in case the decision should be

reversed.

case of

solicitor, make oath and say: First, that I did on Monday, the first day of September, in the year of our Lord 1879, at being the principal place of business of the partnership of C. Smith & Co., the above-named defendants, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, personally serve C. D., the person having, at the time of such service, the control and management of the partnership business there [or personally serve C. Smith, one of the partners of the firm of C. Smith & Co., the above-named defendants], with a true copy of a writ of summons which appeared to me to have been regularly issued out of and under the seal of the district registry in Sheffield of Her Majesty's High Court of Justice at the suit of the above-named plaintiff against the abovenamed defendant, and dated 29th day of August, 1879, and marked 1879, H., No. 2666, to which said writ and copy a memorandum was subscribed and due indorsements were made thereon pursuant to the statute in that case made and provided. Secondly, and I further saying rollers, in contact with each other, and made to rotate that I did afterwards, on the 2nd day of September, 1879, indorse on the said writ the day of the week and month of such service according to the statute in that case made and provided. Sworn, &c.

Cases of the Week.

BILL OF SALE-ACT OF BANKRUPTCY-ASSIGNMENT OF WHOLE PROPERTY TO SECURE ANTECEDENT DEBTAGREEMENT AT TIME OF LOAN-EXCEPTION OF BOOK DEBTS.-In a case of Ex parte Burton, before the Court of Appeal on the 6th inst., the question was whether a bill of sale, executed by a liquidating debtor shortly before he filed his liquidation petition, was void against the trustee in the liquidation as an act of bankruptcy. The bill of sale comprised all the property of the debtor (who was a small retail trader) except his book debts, and it was given in consideration of, and to secure, a loan of £200 made to him by the grantee sometime previously. In the debtor's statement of affairs presented to his creditors he stated that his book debts amounted to £363, and he estimated them as likely to produce £150. Upon this it was urged that they formed a substantial exception from the security. It was also alleged that, at the time when the loan was made, there was an agreement to give a bill of sale to secure it. Upon the evidence the court (JAMES, BAGGALLAY, and THESIGER, L.JJ.), came to the conclusion that the agreement really was that the bill of sale was not to be given until the lender "lost confidence" in the borrower, and that, therefore, the principle of the decision in Ex parte Fisher (20 W. R. 849, L. R. 7 Ch. 636) applied. The agreement was in effect to give the security only when the borrower should be on the verge of bankruptcy, and such an agreement could not support the deed. And, though it has been sometimes doubted whether book debts could form a valid exception for this purpose, this doubt being partly founded on the decision in Ex parte Foxley (16 W. R. 831, L. R. 3 Ch. 515), the court expressed an opinion that book debts, if of sufficient value, might well form a valid exception, illustrating this by the case of a banker whose assets consist to a great extent of book debts. But, upon the evidence, the court held that in the case before them the book debts did not form an available asset, and, consequently, that the deed was void as against the trustee.

PRACTICE STAYING EXECUTION PENDING APPEAL-PRO

PER COURT TO APPLY TO-ACTION IN ADMIRALTY DIVISIONORD. 58, R. 16.-In a case of The Khedive, before the Court of Appeal on the 8th inst., an application was made to stay the proceedings under a judgment of the Court of Appeal, pending an appeal to the House of Lords. The question was raised whether the application ought to be made to the Admiralty Division or to the Court of Appeal. The case of Justice v. The Mersey Steel and Iron Company (24 W. R. 955, L. R. 1 C. P. D. 575) was cited as showing that in common law actions such an application ought to be made to the division in which the action is brought, through the later case of Grant v. The Banque FrancoEgyptienne (26 W. R. 669, L. R. 3 C. P. D. 202) is an

PATENT-SPECIFICATION-SUFFICIENCY.-In a Wegmann v. Concoran, before the Court of Appeal on the 10th inst., the decision of Fry, J. (27 W. R. 357, 23 SOLICITORS' JOURNAL, 121), was affirmed. The action was brought to restrain an alleged infringement of the plaintiff's patent, and Fry, J., dismissed it, on the ground that the specification was insufficient. The patent was for "the invention of an improved machine or apparatus for treating or preparing meal." The invention consisted mainly in passing the meal (produced by the ordinary process of grinding wheat between two grindstones) between a pair of squeez

in opposite directions. The specification stated that "the squeezing rollers are to have a surface consisting of material containing so much silica as not to colour the meal or flour. I prefer to make them of iron coated with china, and finely turned with diamond tools." The evidence showed that the material which the plaintiff actually used for his rollers, and the only one which, so far as he knew, would answer his purpose, was a very hard kind of porcelain, not manufactured and known in England, but made for him in Italy. This porcelain contained 73 per cent. of silica, which is a much larger proportion than is contained in what is now commonly manufactured in England as china (which contains only 40 per cent. of silica), and is about the same proportion as is contained in oriental china. What the specification described as a roller made of iron coated with china consisted, in fact, of a very thick, hollow porcelain cylinder, with an iron spindle passing through the centre of it, and forming its axis. If the porcelain cylinder fitted close to the iron spindle, it was liable to crack when the iron became hot, by reason of its unequal expansion as compared with that of the iron. The plaintiff in practice interposed between the porcelain and the iron a bedding of sulphur cement, which became soft when the iron became hot, and thus prevented the cracking. This fact, however, was not stated in the specification. It also appeared that, in order that the surface of the rollers should not disintegrate in the process of squeezing, and thus discolour the meal by the fine particles given off, it was necesthat the material of which they were made should possess the quality of toughness as well as that of hardness, plaintiff was due to the presence in it of a larger proportion and that the toughness of the material employed by the of alumina than is contained in china. This fact also was not stated in the specification. Fry, J., held that the machine could not be constructed by a workman of ordinary skill with the aid of the specification alone, but that further experiments would be necessary, and, consequently, that the specification was bad. And this decision was affirmed by the Court of Appeal (JAMES, BAGGALLAY, and THESIGER, L.JJ.) on the same ground.

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TRUSTEE ACT, 1850, s. 32-"NEW" TRUSTEES—REAPPOINTMENT OF THREE ORIGINAL TRUSTEES IN PLACE OF FOUR.-In a case of In re Harford's Trusts, beforethe Master of the Rolls on the 8th inst., a petition was presented asking that three out of four original trustees might be appointed new trustees of a will, the fourth trusteehaving absconded. JESSEL, M.R., although he felt somedoubt as to whether the court could make an order for the re-appointment of the three trustees, as section 32 of the Trustee Act, 1850, required that "new" trustees should be appointed, ultimately made the order, following In re Stokes (L. R. 13 Eq. 333).

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