the appointment of a special receiver, and thereby altogether exclude the examination and report by the official receiver.

RAILWAY RATES AND FARES.

II.

We have purposely dealt with the maximum charges for passengers, because diverse as they are, they are simplicity itself compared with the rates for goods, to deal with which in any detail would far too much incumber our present space, although we may do so at some future time. It is sufficient to point out that the form of toll clauses as to goods does not differ from the form as to passengers, although the degree of diversity is infinitely greater. As was said by the Royal Commission of 1865:

There is not only a diversity in the amount of tolls for the use of the line and in the rates when the company is a carrier, but an imperfect enumeration, and often a diversity of classification of the various goods to which the tolls apply. Thus some important commodities are altogether omitted, and the class in which a particular article is placed in the Act of one compary is not always the same as that in which the same article is placed in the Act of another company.

. . The enumeration is extremely imperfect. One Act enumerates 22 articles, another 98, another 160; the Acts adding at the end of the highest class general words to include all other articles and matters not enumerated in the previous classes.

The consequence has been that it became absolutely necessary to prepare a more comprehensive catalogue, which has been embodied in what is called the "Clearing House Classification." "This classification," we read in Mr. Parsloe's admirable work on railways (p. 187), “is constantly undergoing revision, and the removal of a certain class of goods to another and higher class becomes a serious matter for the trader. Moreover, as a rule, no notice is given of such alterations."

This leads us to the third branch of our subject, the consideration of the protection of the public by the 86th section of the Railways Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845. This very curious section runs thus :—

And with respect to the carrying of passengers and goods upon the railway, and the tolls to be taken thereon, be it enacted as follows:

It shall be lawful for the company to use and employ locomotive engines or other moving power, and carriages and wagons to be drawn or propelled thereby, and to carry and convey upon the railway all such passengers and goods as shall be offered to them for that purpose, and to make such reasonable charges in respect thereof as they may from time to time determine upon, not exceeding the tolls by the special Act authorized to be taken by them.

In reference to section 3 (the interpretation clause of the Act), which provides that toll shall include any rate, charge, or other payment, &c., the first question which arises upon this section is whether "tolls" in the words "not exceeding the tolls" means tolls for the use of the line only or maximum rates. We think, on the whole, that it means tolls for the use of the line, engines, and carriages, and that the intention of the Legislature was to provide for the cases (not very numerous) in which a maximum rate clause should not be provided. The word, however, is clearly susceptible of the other construction, and if the other construction be the true one, the margin between any alleged unreasonable charge and the maximum charge will be less, for the maximum rate is always less than than the maximum toll for the use of the line, engines, and carriages. However this may be, it is plain that the section imposes two limits. First, there is the parliamentary limit. Secondly, there is the limit of reasonableness. It is not enough that a charge shall not exceed a parliamentary maximum; it must also be reasonable. Now, reasonableness is, of course, a question of

fact, to be decided like any other question of fact by a jury. We are led, therefore, to the inevitable conclusion that any charge whatever made by any railway company may be disputed as unreasonable before a jury. But would the courts give effect to such a construction, or would they reject the word "reasonable as insensible? It is as plain as words can make it that railways are a highway in law by virtue of the 92nd section of the Railways Clauses Act, 1845, but in the Powell Duffryn case (L. R. 9 Ch. 331), the Court of Appeal declined to allow this theoretical right of the public to be enforced. Therefore, if any reasonable way of getting out of the grammatical construction of the section can be found, we may be pretty sure that the courts would avail themselves of it. We think, however,

that the words of the section are too strong to be got over, and we observe that this is the view adopted by the latest writers on the subject, and by the Railway Commissioners (see Browne and Theobald's Law of Railway Companies, p. 291).

It can hardly be expected, however, that an individual will be found bold enough to dispute the charges of a railway company upon the basis of this section, and

indeed the section itself seems, for some unaccountable reason, to have escaped the notice of those interested in enforcing it; for we observe that in Great Western Railway Company v. Brown, a case decided last week, in which two judges issued a prohibition to the Railway Commissioners, Mr. Brown, who complained of excessive fares, relied upon the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, and sought to prove that the imposition of such fares amounted to a denial of "reasonable facilities" within that Act. We are not surprised by the prohibition, and cannot but think that it was correctly issued, although we believe that not only the Railway Commissioners, but also the Scotch Court of Session, have taken the opposite view. Where there is an undue preference, the Railway Commissioners appear to us to have a jurisdiction over fares, but we cannot think that the mere word "facilities" can give them so wide a jurisdiction. The real remedy of the public seems to be through the Board of Trade by means of the following enactment in 7 & 8 Vict. c. 48, s. 18, with which we will conclude. This section, with an amount of verbiage unusual even in Acts of Parliament of that date, enacts that in all cases where railway companies infringe railway statutes, and the Board of Trade shall be of opinion that it would be for the public advantage that the companies should be restrained from so doing, the Board of Trade shall certify the Attorney-General of the fact, and thereupon the Attorney-General shall take steps in the proper court for the due enforcement of the law. We believe we are correct in stating that this section has been hitherto but little put in force, and that the few exceptions to be found in the books arose either from cases where either the Board of Trade itself, or a particular body of traders, or a particular body of shareholders, was interested. It seems, however, to be pretty clear that the object of the section was to protect the public at large.

NEW ORDERS.

TRADE MARKS.

The rules and forms issued by the United States Patent Office for the guidance of persons applying for the registration of trade-marks under the Act of March 3, 1881, can be inspected at the Trade-Marks Registry Office, 25, Southampton-buildings, W.C.

The twenty-first anniversary festival of the Solicitors' Benevolent Association will be held on Wednesday, the 22nd of June next, at seven o'clock p.m., at the "Albion," Aldersgate-street, London, under the presidency of the Attorney-General, Sir Henry James, Q.C., M.P.

REVIEWS.

MOOHUMMUDAN LAW.

MOOHUMMUDAN LAW OF INHERITANCE, AND RIGHTS AND RELATIONS AFFECTING IT. SUNNI DOCTRINE. BY ALMARIC RUMSEY, Barrister-at-Law, Professor of Indian Jurisprudence at King's College, London. W. H. Allen & Co.

Professor Rumsey's original " Chart of Moohummudan Inheritance," which consisted of less than fifty pages, has in fourteen years grown into a book of 375 pages. We are not surprised to find that it has been recommended by the Civil Service Commissioners for the use of candidates for the Indian Civil Service, since it contains, in a concise form, a full exposition of all the Sunni doctrines as to testamentary and marriage law. The author commences with a statement and exposition of the Moohummudan Law of Inheritance, and of the rights of the respective degrees of kindred, with examples to illustrate the various rules of distribution, and the special privileges and disabilities which exist in exceptional cases; and this is followed by an enunciation of the Moohummudan law as to wills, marriage, and dower. The preface contains an interesting account of the various authorities upon the system of law of which the author treats, and of the principal schools into which the Sunni sect have been divided, with a notice of some of the most eminent of the Arabian lawyers. The work has also a complete and exhaustive index, and we think it will be extensively used, not only by the Indian student and the practitioner before the Privy Council, but also by all those who may be interested in Asiatic history and literature, or who (to use the author's own phrase) "have no other object in view than their intellectual culture and gratification." The importance of the Moohummudan Law of Inheritance may be estimated by the circumstance that, according to that system, a testator who leaves any relations can dispose of no more than one-third of his property by will, so that in the case of every solvent estate there must necessarily be an intestacy as to a considerable proportion of it. There is no right of primogeniture, and generally speaking no right by representation, and no distinction (as in the Hindu law) between ancestral and self-acquired property. Among the peculiarities of the system are the rules of "exclusion," which are devised to prevent relations in different degrees from inheriting together, but these rules do not affect husbands, wives, parents, or children. One rule is that no person can inherit during the life of the person through whom he is related to the deceased. Another rule is that a person who is himself excluded may exclude another, although a person incapacitated from inheriting (as, for instance, on the ground of being an infidel) will not exclude another person, or reduce his share. Some of the special disabilities referred to in Professor Rumsey's 13th chapter (which appears for the first time in the present edition) will also be noticed with interest. For instance, a lost or missing person is considered to be living as regards his own property, but dead as regards the property of others. There is some doubt as to the period at the expiration of which death is to be presumed, but several persons have placed it at ninety years (!), death not being presumed to have occurred until the expiration of that interval. A study of the special rules of law as to testamentary dispositions will be found equally interesting, and will disclose the result of industry and careful research on the part of the author.

ELECTION PETITIONS.

REPORTS OF THE DECISIONS OF THE JUDGES FOR THE TRIAL OF ELECTION PETITIONS IN ENGLAND AND IRELAND. By EDWARD LOUGHLIN O'MALLEY and HENRY HARDCASTLE, Barristers-at-Law. Vol. III. Stevens & Haynes. Although Mr. O'Malley has, through his appointment as Attorney-General at Hong Kong, been prevented from assisting further in this well-known series of reports, his name is, for convenience of citation, retained in the third volume, which has been prepared by Mr. Hardcastle alone. The volume extends from the North Durham Petition in August, 1874, to the second Evesham Petition, which was decided last December, and thus includes all but one of the petitions which have been tried by two judges under the Act of 1879. Several of the cases now reported involve important questions of election law. Thus the Tipperary case (p. 19) deals with the disability of a convicted felon to sit in Parliament; and the judges discussed in the Plymouth case (p. 107) the question of bribery by means of charitable gifts, and in the Bewdley case (p. 145) that of the agency of the members of political associations. The Boston case (p. 151) establishes the illegality of the colourable employment of voters as watchers," and the Oxford case (p. 155) that of the colourable employment of voters as messengers. Mr. Hardcastle might, with advantage, have appended a digest of the rulings which he has reported; for, in the absence of head-notes, the discovery of the effect of the various judgments is a work of time.

66

TORTS.

A SUMMARY OF THE LAW of Torts. THIRD EDITION. By ARTHUR UNDERHILL, M.A., LL.D., Barrister-at-Law, assisted by CLAUDE C. M. PLUMPTRE, Barrister-atLaw. Butterworths.

Mr. Underhill's work on Torts has, in little more than seven years, reached a third edition, in which he has the benefit of the assistance of Mr. Plumptre, who is known as the author of a companion work on the Law of Contracts. The book has been carefully edited and revised, and all the provisions of the Employers' Liability Act, 1880, have been incorporated in the text. Mr. Underhill would scarcely aspire to become a rival of Addison, bu this work may be recommended to students, since the law of torts is stated in a series of concise rules, illustrated by a reference to the leading authorities. The decisions cited are brought down to a very recent date, but in the selection of the latest cases Mr. Underhill appears to have confined his researches to two series of reports-a "self-denying ordinance" which will prob ably deprive his readers of several valuable authorities. Thus, some of the recent decisions as to infringement of trade-marks have been entirely ignored.

ARTICLED CLERKS.

THE ARTICLED CLERK'S HAND-BOOK, CONTAINING A COURSE OF STUDY FOR THE PRELIMINARY, INTERMEDIATE, FINAL, AND HONOURS EXAMINATIONS FOR ARTICLED CLERKS. By RICHARD HALLIDAY. FIFTH EDITION. Horace Cox. This edition has been prepared with special reference to the provisions as to the examination of articled clerks, which are contained in the Solicitors Act, 1877, and all the regulations made under that Act are fully set out. The work deals with the preliminary examination, as well as with the intermediate and final, and the hints as to reading for each appear to be useful and practical. The appendix contains specimens of questions set in each examination, as well as a "Glossary of Technical Law Phrases," which is likely to be of service to students.

It is stated that Mr. E. H. Harris, solicitor, late one of the Prothonotaries of Lancashire, left, by his will, a sum of over £200,000 to be applied to charitable purposes.

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE BANKRUPTCY ACT.-DISCLAIMER OF

LEASES.

[To the Editor of the Solicitors' Journal.] Sir,-This subject, which was referred to in your paper of the 9th inst., is of such great importance that I venture to trouble you with some remarks upon it.

I do not so much propose to criticise decided cases as to consider whether any way can be suggested of remedying the present most unsatisfactory state of the law. This consideration is all the more important at the present time, as a Bankruptcy Bill, proposing to deal with the subject, is now before the House of Commons.

I would only remark, as regards the present enactment, that any construction which would attribute to a disclaimer by a person who is trustee of "the property of the bankrupt" the effect of a surrender or destruction of that which, at the date of the bankruptcy, was no part of the property of the bankrupt, and never could have vested in the trustee-i.e., the sub-interest, whether legal or equitable, previously carved out of it-would, in my opinion, do violence to the language of the Act and to common sense.

For this reason, I think that Taylor v. Gillott was wrongly decided, and that, the effect of the disclaimer or surrender being to vest in the landlord the term created by the lease, he, like any other surrenderee, was bound to give effect to an interest, though equitable only, carved out of it and known to him at the time. I think the writer of the paper to which I have referred scarcely deals with the point raised in the case, when he says it was asking the reversioner to do something to which he had never agreed. The application against the defendant was not in respect of his original reversion, but because he had, with knowledge, acquired the estate out of which alone effect could have been given to the sub-interest, and out of which the bankrupt had agreed to give it.

No Act of Parliament has attempted to meet the difficulties of this subject, and it is only charitable to the draftsman of the section in the present Act to suppose that he knew nothing of them.

In attempting to frame any provisions, we must, before all else, settle clearly what are the objects we seek to attain, and what to avoid.

To destroy sub-interests by the act of the representative of the person creating them must be wrong, whilst to return the property to the landlord burdened with charges and sub-tenancies, and stripped of its valuable incidents, must be equally so.

I would suggest that the objects of any legislation should be to free the trustee and the bankrupt's estate from liability to the obligations of the lease (subject to rights of proof by persons injured), and to interfere as little as possible with all other rights.

I propose, first, that the trustee shall have power, by leave of the court, to sign some instrument, or give some notice to all parties interested, the effect of which would be to inform them that he will not adopt the lease, and that, thereupon, the liability of the trustee, and (subject to rights of proof) the liability of the bankrupt's estate, shall cease; and, secondly, that the court may, at any time afterwards, upon hearing all parties, make an order vesting the term in any person entitled to it.

I would, after the execution by the trustee of the instrument or notice, leave all persons, except the bankrupt and his trustee, in the same situations as before. I should not propose to oust the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts-as, for instance, where a lessor wished to sue a lessee who had assigned his lease to a bankrupt, or to bring ejectment for recovery of the premises; but when, in order to do justice or protect rights, possession of the term of years became necessary, the Court of Bankruptcy

should have power summarily to make a vesting order. I will give an instance of what might be the working of my scheme; it may make my meaning more plain :

Assume a lease granted to A. and assigned to B., who makes a sub-lease and then becomes bankrupt; whilst B.'s trustee should have power to relieve himself and the bankrupt's estate, he should have no power to destroy the sub-lease nor to affect the landlord's rights against A.

If such a notice as I have suggested were given, the landlord might sue A. on his covenants, in which case A., to make the best of his position, would probably apply to the Bankruptcy Court for an order vesting the term in him-or the landlord might prefer to apply to the court for an order vesting the term in him—and, if the sublessee did not oppose, should obtain it, the rights and interests of all other persons being extinguished. If, however, the sub-lessee chose to accept the lease and its obligations, the court should vest it in him.

I admit that to make the person claiming the subinterest, whether as mortgagee or otherwise, accept the obligations of the lease may be some hardship on him; but as his security or interest was created under a lease, it always had attached to it the risk that if he or someone else did not perform those obligations, he might lose his rights, and this burden having fallen upon him, he must accept it or lose them.

Possibly if breaches of covenant had been committed, the lessor might proceed by ejectment and recover possession and destroy the lease by that process. I would not restrain his doing so, but in the meantime the power of the Bankruptcy Court to make a vesting order in any person claiming under the lease might be exercised, without prejudicing the landlord's action.

The question of what should be done as regards subinterests where the landlord attacks the lessee, who then applies for a vesting order, is more difficult; but unless they were created prior to the assignment by him, I should give the court power to extinguish them, unless the owners of them were willing to adopt the lease. This I should do on the ground that they claim under the assignee who has covenanted to indemnify, or whilst his estate subsists ought to indemnify, the lessee.

It is obvious that considerable power of investigating the interests of the persons interested and of dealing with them must be left with the court, and that more persons than one might have a right of proof, as persons injured, against the bankrupt's estate; but bearing in mind the two propositions which I premised, and which seem to me essential, I have not yet recognized any scheme more likely to do justice.

It may seem some violation of legal principles to leave the term subsisting in the trustee without any liability on his part to perform its provisions, but this I believe to be merely a technical objection, and of no importance if the result would be satisfactory.

Some time since I sketched out some clauses for giving effect to the scheme which I have suggested. They are certainly imperfect and require much consideration, and I am not sure that, in lieu of attempting to frame any rules, it would not be better to leave the court to deal with the facts of each case. I, however, send you the sketch, which may assist you in deciding whether you approve or disapprove of my scheme.

To some extent it is followed in the new Bill; but so far as I have considered the provisions of that measure they are not sufficiently clear, and would fail in practice by not giving sufficient powers to the court to deal with, and if necessary extinguish, the various interests which may present themselves.

This letter is, however, too long already to permit of my criticising in it the provisions of the Bill. J. A.

[We propose to deal with this subject, in connection with our correspondent's valuable letter, next week.ED. S. J.]

CASES OF LAST WEEK.

"

PUBLIC WORSHIP REGULATION ACT, 1874, ss. 7, 9JURISDICTION OF JUDGE - SIGNIFICAVIT - LOCALITY OF SITTING-VICE-CHANCELLOR OF LANCASTER-JURISDICTION -5 ELIZ., c. 23, s. 11-53 GEO. 3, c. 127, s. 1-13 & 14 Vicr. c. 43, s. 13.-In a case of In re Green, before the Court of Appeal on the 12th inst., a question arose as to the jurisdiction of the judge of the Court of Arches under the Public Worship Regulation Act, 1874. Section 9 'provides that when a representation has been made under the Act, and transmitted by the bishop to the archbishop of the province, he shall "forthwith require the judge to hear the matter of the representation at any place within the diocese or province, or in London or Westminster." A representation was made against the incumbent of a place situate in the diocese of Manchester, and in the County Palatine of Lancaster, and was sent by the bishop to the Archbishop of York, who sent a requisition to the judge requiring him to hear and determine the matter of the representation either in London or in Westminster, or within the province of York, cr the diocese of Manchester. The judge elected to hear it at Westminster, and after hearing it there he issued a monition against the defendant. The monition being disregarded, an "inhibition was issued against the incumbent, and this also being disregarded, the judge, sitting at Westminster, pronounced the incumbent in contempt, and signified the contempt to the Chancery Division of the High Court, and a copy of the writ was sent to the Chancery Court of the County Palatine. The Vice-Chancellor of that court gave notice to the defendant that he should sit at his chambers in Lincoln's-inn for the purpose of hearing the matter, and, after bearing it accordingly, he issued a writ de contumace capiendo, addressed to the sheriff of the County Palatine, under which the defendant was arrested and lodged in gaol. Upon an application for a writ of habeas corpus, it was contended that, under section 9 of the Public Worship Act, the judge had jurisdiction only to hear the matter of the representation at Westminster, and that, as the significavit was issued by him in respect of disobedience to an inhibition issued by him as official principal of the Provincial Court of York, for ecclesiastical offences com. mitted within the province of York, he could only sit for that purpose within that province. The Court of Appeal (JAMES, BRETT, and COTTON, L.JJ.), however, held that the power given by section 9 of the Act" to hear the matter of the representation" at the place appointed by the archbishop, extended to any proceeding incident to the hearing, and subsequent to it, which was part and parcel of the cause. The whole matter might be heard at the place appointed by the archbishop, until the will of the court was finally executed. Two other objections were raised— that the Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine had no jurisdiction to receive the writ of significavit, or to issue the writ de contumace capiendo thereupon, and that, if he had, he could not exercise the jurisdiction sitting in his chambers in Lincoln's-inn. 'The court held that both these objections were unfounded.-SOLICITORS, Brooks, Jenkins & Co.; J. Girdlestone; Solicitor to the Treasury.

INTESTACY-NEXT OF KIN-"CHILDREN" OF DECEASED BROTHER-LEGITIMACY ACCORDING TO LAW OF DOMICIL STATUTE OF DISTRIBUTIONS (22 & 23 CAR. 2, c. 10), s. 7.In a case of In re Goodman's Trusts, before the Court of Appeal, on the 13th inst., the question arose whether, under the Statute of Distributions, the children of a deceased brother or sister of an intestate, who are to take as his next of kin by representation, include children who are legitimate according to the law of the country where their parents were domiciled at the time of their birth, although those children would have been illegitimate according to the law of England if their parents had been domiciled there at that time, or whether the word is to be strictly confined to children who would have been legitimate according to English law; in other words, whether regard is to be had to the domicil of the deceased brother or sister, or only to the domicil of the intestate. At the death of the intestate, a domiciled English woman, her only next of kin were children of two brothers. One of the

brothers had, when domiciled in England, lived with mistress, by whom he had three children. He then went to reside permanently in Holland. There he had a fourth child by the mistress. Afterwards, he married the mistress, and had by her a fifth child. By the laws of Holland the marriage legitimated the children who were born before it. The fourth child, a daughter, claimed to share with the fifth as one of the next of kin of the in. testate. Jessel, M.R., held (28 W. R. 902, L. R. 14 Ch. D. 619) that, as she would not have been legitimate according to the law of England if her parents had been domiciled there at the time of her birth, she was not entitled. The Court of Appeal (JAMES, COTTON, and LUSH, L.JJ.) reversed this decision, though they were divided in opinion, and held that the claim of the fourth child was well founded. LUSH, L.J. agreed with the Master of the Rolle. He said it had been admitted, and he thought rightly admitted, that no decision was to be found in favour of the construction of the statute for which the appellant contended. It was well established that the distribution of an intestate's property was governed by the law of his domicil. If the court was administering the personal estate of a person who had died intestate in Holland, being domiciled there, it would adminis ter it according to the law of Holland, and in such an adminis. tration the appellant would be treated as one of the lawful children of her father. To that extent her status in her own country would be recognized and accepted as her status here. But the administration of the estate of an intestate who was domiciled in England must be according to English law. It was argued that, even when it had to deal with an English estate, the English law would accept the status established by the law of the claimant's own domicil, and treat as of kin a person who, if born in this country, would bave been filius nullius. On this point his lordship differed from his colleagues. The only authority for the doctrine was to be found in the opinion of foreign jurists, and in some dicta of English judges based on those opinions. The result of it would be that the same person might be both legitimate and illegitimate in the same country-legitimate as regarded succession to personalty. but illegiti mate as regarded succession to realty. It could not be disputed that by the ancient common law of England a person born out of lawful wedlock was deemed filius nullius. The Statute of Merton (20 Hen. 3, c. 9), showed that the barons refused to accede to the demand of the bishops for the introduction of the canon law, which, like the civil law, recognized the subsequent marriage of the parents as legitimating their previously born issue. The demand of the bishops was in terms confined to an alteration in the law of succession to real estate, but, if the common law had at that time recognized any distinction between the succession to real and the succession to personal estate, it would have been a strong argument for the bishops, and one would have expected something to be said about it. His lordship read the Statute of Merton as declaring that no innovation upon the ancient law of England of the nature of that demanded by the bishops should be made at all. The observations of Blackstone in his Com. mentaries (book 1, p. 455, and book 2, c. 15), showed that he was not aware of any concession to the canon and civil law which should entitle a legitimated ante natus to rank in our table of consanguinity as a child born in wedlock. His lordship was of opinion that the Statute of Distributions, like any other, must be construed in the sense which the common law put upon its words, and that the word "children" in it meant such children and such only as were recognized in our table of consanguinity. COTTON, L.J., said that the question of legitimacy was one of status, and in his opinion, by the law of England, questions of status depended on the law of domicil. Lord Stowell in Dalrymple v. Dal rymple (2 Hagg. Cons. 58) said that "according to the law of England the status or condition of a claimant is tried by reference to the law of the country where the status origi nated." And in Fraton v. Livingstone (3 Macq. 54) Lord Wensleydale said, "The laws of the State affecting the per sonal status of its subjects travel with them wherever they go, and attach to them in whatever country they are resi dent." If, as in his lordship's opinion was the case, the question whether a person was legitimate depended on the law of the place where his parents were domiciled at the time of his birth-i.e., on his domicil of origin-he could not understand on what principle, if he was by that law legitimate, he was not legitimate everywhere. And he was of opinion that, if a child was legitimate by the law of the

country in which at the time of its birth its parents were domiciled, the law of England, except in the case of succession to real estate in England, recognized and acted on the status thus declared by the law of the domicil. In deciding questions of legitimacy the law of England looked to the law of the actual domicil at the time of the birth. JAMES, L.J., said that the question was: What was the rule which the English law adopted and applied to a non-English child? This was a question of international law. According to that law in all other civilized communities the status of a person, his legitimacy or illegitimacy, was to be determined everywhere by the law of the country of his origin, the law under which he was born. It would require a great force of argument derived from legal principle, or great weight of authority clear and distinct, to justify the court in holding that our country stood in this respect aloof in barbarous insularity from the rest of the civilized world. On principle every consideration went strongly to show that it ought not so to stand. But on authority, as well as on principle, he thought it conclusive that the question ought to be determined in favour of the appellant.

A great deal of the discussion on the argument of the appeal turned upon the effect of the decisions in Birtwhistle v. Vardill (2 C. & F. 571, 7 C. & F. 895) and Boyes v. Bedale (1 H. & M. 798). In the former case the House of Lords held that a Scotchman, legitimated in Scotland by the subsequent marriage of his parents, could not take as heir to his father of real estate in England, because he was not born in lawful wedlock. LUSH, L.J, said that this case was a binding decision that, for the purpose of succession to real estate, the foreign status of legitimacy by the subsequent marriage of the parents was not recognized by the law of England; but the question whether the succession to the personal estate of an intestate domiciled in England should follow the law of the succession to realty did not then arise, and was left open by the judges. COTTON, L.J., said that the decision in Birtwhistle v. Vardill was not against the present appellant, while the opinions expressed by the judges were in her favour. In his lordship's view the judges intended to express an opinion that the claimant in that case, being legitimate by the law of Scotland, where his parents were domiciled at his birth and at the date of their marriage, must be considered as legitimate in England, except for the purpose of succession to real estate there, and that this depended on a special rule of the feudal law as adopted in England. And this seemed to be the view taken by Lord Cranworth in Shaw. Gould (L. R. 3 H. L. 70), and by Vice-Chancellor Kindersley in In re Dow's Estate (4 Drew. 194). JAMES, L.J., said that in the opinion of the judges given in answer to the question put to them by the lords, two distinct propositions were clearly enunciated-(1) that the claimant was for all purposes and to all intents legitimate; (2) that such legitimacy did not necessarily, and did not in fact in that case, include heirship to English land. The first proposition was accepted by the law lords without any doubt or question; the second was questioned, but the case was ultimately determined in accordance with the second proposition. It might be said that the only decision was against the heirship in that case, but it was the ratio decidendi by which the court ought to be guided. What the assembled judges there said, and what the lords held, was that the case of heirship to English land was a peculiar exception to the rights incident to that character and status of legitimacy, which was admitted by both judges and lords to be the true character and status of the claimant. It was an additional instance of the many anomalies which, at that time, affected the descent of land. Heirship was an incident of land, depending on local law, the law of the country, the county, the manor, and even of the property itself, the forma doni. Kinship was an incident of the person and universal. It appeared to his lordship that a statement of the law so given and so accepted nearly fifty years ago, which had been adopted without question by jurists as a correct statement of English adhesion to the universal law and comity of nations, was not to be questioned at this time by any tribunal short of the House of Lords, and he thought not by them. In the other case, Boyes v. Bedale, Lord Hatherley (then ViceChancellor Wood) held, upon the construction of the will of a testator domiciled in England, that, under a gift of £5,000 to the children of A., only such children could take as were children according to the law of England, and that a daughter of A., born when he was domiciled in France, but

before his marriage to the mother, could not take, though she had, by the law of France, become legitimated by the subsequent marriage of her parents. And at the close of his judgment the Vice-Chancellor said, "I take it that the language of the Statute of Distributions would be dealt with in the same way.' LUSH, L.J., said that, though this observation was an obiter dictum, it followed as a logical consequence from the decision. If a testator used the very words of the Statute of Distributions, and nothing appeared to show that he intended to use them in any other than their legal sense, upon what principle could the same words in an English statute, passed to supply the place of a will and intended to govern the administration of the estate of a domiciled Englishman, receive a different meaning? COTTON, L.J., thought that the decision in Boyes v. Bedale was contrary to principle and erroneous. JAMES, L.J.,_thought that the ground on which the decision in Boyes v. Bedale was founded-viz., that in an English. man's will the children of a nephew must mean children who would be lawful children if they were English children -was a violent presumption. But the point as to the construction of the Statute of Distributions was never argued by counsel, and the dictum of the Vice-Chancellor must have been hastily uttered at the close of an oral judgment. It must be borne in mind that the Statute of Distributions was not a statute for Englishmen only, but for all persons, whether English or not, dying intestate and domiciled in England. And it was to provide for what was thought an equitable distribution of the assets as to which the intestate had not, through inadvertence, expressed his testamentary intentions, and, as the law applied universally to persons of all countries, races, and religions whatsoever, the proper law to be applied in determining kindred was the universal law, the international law adopted by the Browne, & Wild. comity of states.-SOLICITORS, Capron, Dalton, & Co; Wild,