"Fines for playing at cards and dice in chambers.

"The parson; he shall provide a wax taper of 1 lb. weight before the image of the Holy and Blessed Mary the Virgin.

"Townesend and four others, 40d. each.

"Bygham, 6s. 8d., because they played in his chamber.

66

Cholmeley, 6s. 8d., because he is the senior Barrister.

They are all put out of commons until payment."

The next entry is even less to the credit of "Master Tounesend "

"Autumn Vacation, 1520.

"The following gentlemen were amerced for a doe [dama] seized and taken away at the Gate of Lincoln's Inn from a certain poor man who was coming to speak with Danastre, and who left his horse standing at the gate bearing the said doe: Master Curzon, 3s. 4d.; Master Tounesend, 20d.; Master Burgh, 3s. 4d.; Master Lane, 20d.; Master Smyth, 20d.; Master See, 20d.; Master Menell, 20d.; Master Talbot, 20d. Of these sums 14s. was given to Master Sulyard for the building of the new Gate; the rest was given to the poor man in satisfaction for his doe."

The editor of the Records has added up the figures, and points out that the fines amount to 16s. 8d., and that the "poor man" received only 2s. 8d.

Master Tounesend, however, was called to the Bar, and in 1525 we find Townesende and Meynell acting as Auditors. At a Council held on St. Scholastica's Day, 1527, "the following Utter Barristers were put out of commons and fined 3s. 4d. each for losing a moot on Thursday last: Talbot, Towneshend, See, Meynell, Heythe, Hygham, Davy, and Layne." On All Saints' Day of the same year Touneshend is elected to the office of Pensioner, whose duty it was to collect the pensions payable to the Society. And in 1530 Mr. Townsend was called to the Bench.

That Mr. Tounesend was a gentleman in whom considerable confidence was reposed (notwithstanding the hopeless uncertainty as to the spelling of his name), appears from a curious entry on All Saints' Day, 1531, when it was moved that whereas there was a variance between Mr. Ruston and Maycote concerning the amending of a record in the King's Bench, without the assent of the same Mr. Ruston, the hearing thereof was committed to Mr. Crafford and Mr. Tounesend, and they were directed to make their report at the next Council. Mr. Crafford was a Governor of the Inn and the Lent Reader for 1532. Their report does not appear. In 1533 Mr. Townesend was the Autumn Reader;. in 1534 he was appointed a Governor of the Inn and Keeper of the Black Book, and in 1536 he was elected Treasurer. When his accounts were passed in 1537, it appears that the receipts amounted to £39 145. 11d., and included 3s. 4d. each from 6 Utter Barristers, and Is. 8d. each from 15 Inner Barristers for losing a moot. The expenditure allowed amounted to £12 5s. 8d., and the balance recorded is £26 9s. 3 d., which, as the accurate Editor observes, is arithmetically wrong, as it should be £27 9s. 34d. Finally, in 1540, Mr. Townssende is elevated to the dignity of Sergeant-at-Law, and at a Council held on St. John the Baptist's Day of that year, it was ordered that “Every of the Felowship of this Howsse shulde mete and gyffe attendaunce in the Hall the same daye that the Serjauntz shuld be brought to Seynt Johnz (the Priory of St. John at Clerkenwell), betwyxt the owers of three and fower of the clock att after noone the same daye, to awayte uppon thether, and the moost auncient alwayes then for the tyme beyng to make a solempne proposition unto the seid Serjauntz, and then to delyuer every of them ther seid portion of money in a lytyll pursse, and then a lyttyll the auncient of the seid Serjauntz in the name of them all shall unto the seid proposition makeanswhere; and so to drynke, and then to departe the Howssc."

Mr. Russheden, Mr. Townssende, and Mr. Herrys, were the Serjeeants elect, and each of them had presented to him the sum of £5.

In these notes I am attempting to trace the history of the teaching of English law in England from the time of Henry II. to the institution of the Council of Legal Education by the four Inns of Court in the year 1851. This history may be conveniently divided into three periods: the first ending about the middle of the sixteenth century; the second at the Restoration; and the third extending to the foundation of the modern system under the control of the Council of Legal Education, and, I ought to add, the Incorporated Law Society. In the extracts from Fortescue, from the Report of Sir Nicholas Bacon, and from the Black Books of Lincoln's Inn, I have endeavoured to present a picture of the methods of legal education during the first of these periods, and of its condition at the expiration of that period about the middle of the sixteenth century.

(To be continued.)

III.—THE ALASKAN BOUNDARY QUESTION.

IN

N the matter of the boundary line between Alaska and Canada, there have been numerous discussions in the newspapers and magazines, giving both sides of the question.

Perhaps the most notable recent articles which have been widely read in America, are, one by Mr. Horace Townsend (an Englishman, now resident in the United States, but long in Canada) in the Fortnightly Review for September, one by the Hon. J. B. Moore, formerly Assistant Secretary of State of the United States, in the North American Review for October, and, most extended and comprehensive of all, one by the Hon. John W. Foster, formerly Secretary of State of

the United States and undoubtedly the leading diplomatic authority of that country, in the National Geographic Magazine for November. The latter article contains careful reproductions of many maps bearing upon the discussion. To summarize from them and many less extensive articles, it would seem that the main dispute arises as to the interpretation of the passage in the Convention entered into in 1825 by Great Britain and Russia, fixing the boundary in question. The original text of the Convention is in the following words: "La limite entre les Possessions Britaniques et la lisière de Cote mentionée ci-dessus comme devant appartenir a La Russie sera formée par une ligne parallelle aux sinuosités de la cote et qui ne pourra jamais en être éloignée que de dix ligues marines.”

The American claim is that the strip of territory assured to Russia (to whose title the United States succeeded by purchase) is to be measured from the shore of every bay or harbour, following the sinuosities of the coast. The Canadian claim is that it shall be measured from the border of the open sea. The coast is sheltered by an archipelago of about one thousand islands, many of great size, and the Canadian contention would give some of these and many harbours, notably Lynn Canal, a deep fjord some sixty miles long by six miles wide, to Canada. At the head of this fjord are two principal American settlements, Skagway and Dyea, and alsoPyramid Harbour, which are convenient to passes leading to the Canadian goldfields.

Mr. Foster shows that Russia, in the negotiations just prior to 1825, insisted on a continuous holding on the main land. for the express purpose of protecting her establishments in the islands, and that England finally conceded her claim in this respect and was prepared to make the strip fifty to one hundred miles wide. That the negotiation was as to whether the boundary should be at the summit or shoreward base of the chain of mountains supposed to run parallel to the shore, that it was finally fixed at the summit with this provision,.

that it should never exceed ten marine leagues from the coast. That the negotiators had three maps before them, that of Van Couver, that prepared by the quartermaster's department of St. Petersburg, and Arrowsmith's map. The two former show this range rounding all the bays and inlets. including Lynn Canal, the last omits all mountains. Thenegotiation plainly intended to conform the boundary to this supposed mountain range so outlined, and the language of the convention is perfectly apt for that purpose.

It was so understood at once by both high contracting parties and all cartographers the world over.

As soon as possible (1827) a map was published in în St. Petersburg "by order of His Imperial Majesty" showing the line as now claimed by the United States, inscribed "Limites des Possession Russes et Anglaises d'Aprés la Traité de 1825," The map-maker to his Britannic Majesty adopted and followed this line, and Arrowsmith's map of 1832, which claims to contain the latest information from the Hudson Bay Co., exactly copies the Russian map as to this boundary.

A year before, a map prepared by Bouchette, deputy surveyor general of Lower Canada, and published by Wyld, geographer to the King, and, by permission, dedicated to His Majesty, traces the boundary in the same way.

A map of 1857, prepared by order of the Commissioner of Crown Lands, Toronto, does the same, and no map seems known, whether English, Canadian, American, or of other origin down to 1898, or seventy-three years after the treaty, which indicated any other interpretation than the American. A map by William Ogilvie, astronomer and land surveyor, published in the Scottish Geographic Magazine at Edinburgh, July 1898, is one of the latest British maps so indicating the boundary.

To farther show that the harbours and bays were certainly intended to be assured to Russia, by the seventh article of the convention, the vessels of the two powers and their