Court, in a considered judgment in Tucker v. Oldbury Urban District Council (L. R. [1912], 2 K. B. 317), have now held still further that for a statement, at any rate of a deceased person, to be admissible, it must be shown that to his knowledge it was contrary to his interest. There are cases easy to be conjectured in which positive proof of such knowledge might be very difficult of production.

The privileges of youth are many: negative and positive. One of them is that he can enter into contracts with an irresponsible mind. It is true that for necessaries supplied to him at this stage to support the uncertain promise of his opening life, the irresponsibility when, sui juris, he enters upon his heritage of woe, is withdrawn, and he can be called upon to pay. But if in an astute infancy he embarks on a business career, he may contract to sell goods, receive payment for them, and forego the mere ceremonial of supplying them, confident that the law, unless the contract is ex delicto, will carry him through in triumph with its protective hand. Cowern v. Nield (L. R. [1912], 2 K. B. 419) is the latest illustration.

That a man should stroll into an auction-room and, merely to start the day's business, should bid for land. which he had no intention of buying and which he had never even seen, is an unusual occurrence. So also, pre

sumably, is it unusual that an auctioneer, in preparing a contract of sale, should not observe the requirements of the 4th section of the Statute of Frauds. Yet both these things happened in Dewar v. Mintoft (L. R. [1912], 2 K. B. 373). The decision in the case, that the entry by the auctioneer in the particulars of sale of the name merely of the person to whom he had knocked down the land was not, without something to identify the bidder as purchaser, sufficient to satisfy the Statute, is supported by many well-known cases.

So that up to this point the bidder might, from the fact though it was unknown to him at the time that the Statute held him immune from an action, have escaped the consequences of his indiscretion. But he lost this protection when he wrote to the vendor and the vendor's solicitor giving full details of his bid and the fall of the hammer, and claiming to repudiate liability on the ground of his want of intention, and the circumstance that he had not paid a deposit, which was a requirement of the conditions of sale. This, of course, was tantamount to demanding exemption from, prima facie, a valid contract, on the ground that he had determined to make default in one of its conditions. As there was no difficulty in showing the connection between the correspondence and the particulars of sale, he, on wellestablished cases, revived by his own steps his full obligation. On the third point of law in the decision, fixing upon him liability for the deposit, in addition to the sum by which, at a second auction, the amount realised fell short of his bid, there may be some doubt.

Though the question involved in the decision in In re Miller, ex parte Furniture and Fine Arts Depository (L. R. [1912], 3 K. B. 1), whether, after a judgment against a debtor in a County Court, the registrar has any right to receive from him, without consent of the creditor, part payment of the debt, was not necessary to be answered in the decision; yet the fact that the Court seemed not to be of one mind on the point, makes it desirable in a matter of such consequence that, as Kennedy, L.J., suggested, "those who have the making of the rules in the County Courts will make this point clear one way or the other." T. J. B.

SCOTCH CASES.

The method of solving the numerous difficult questions of trust law which come before trustees and their advisers, by either petitioning the Court for certain powers, or presenting a special case for their opinions, has been largely taken advantage of, and has, on the whole, been of much benefit to all concerned. The Court, speaking generally, have showed a disposition to help trustees out of their difficulties, but the decision Nobles Trustees ([1912], 2 S. L. T. 211) is a sharp reminder that there is a limit to the province of the Court in this respect; that, in brief, the function of a Court is judicial, not advisory. In the case mentioned a petition had been presented for the purpose of getting the Court's sanction to certain matters which the trustees were contemplating doing, but the Court dismissed the application, refusing to give any guidance to the trustees, holding that the proceedings contemplated were acts of administration, as to which, so long as they were trustees, they must use their own discretion.

The peculiarity of a maritime lien is that, unlike other liens, the person entitled to it, even though he is without possession of the ship, has a right over her which is preferred not only to ordinary unsecured creditors, but also to secured creditors like mortgagees. Certain maritime liens are well defined-e. g., the crew's, for wages. But when a ship's captain borrows money for the purpose of procuring necessaries for the voyage-e. g., bunker coalhas the person who provided him with the funds a lien on the vessel for his advances? It is clearly decided that for necessaries supplied in a home port there can be no such lien, but certain of the Scottish Institutional writers were of opinion-being probably influenced thereto by the fact

that at the time they wrote means of communication between a captain and his owners was so extremely difficult -that there would be such a lien for necessaries supplied in a foreign port. But a decision to the opposite effect was pronounced in the English Court in 1883, and it has been followed by the Court of Sessions (Outer House) in Constant v. Klompus ([1912], 2 S. L. T. 62), thus making the law of both countries coincide on that point.

Now, in Boyle v. Olsen (44 S. L. R. 894), the first step has been taken in assimilating the practice of the English and Scotch Courts in shipping cases. It was a salvage claim. Two separate actions had been raised against a common defender, and each pursuer was endeavouring to show that the salvage service had been rendered by him, and that the service of the other pursuer was practically negligible. Notwithstanding this conflict of interest, the Court held that the actions should be conjoined. This being found, it was laid down that the pursuers should have the right to cross-examine each other's witnesses, and also, following English practice, that the tender which the defender had lodged must be apportioned among the pursuers. The Lord President was responsible for this new move, and he stated that he had taken the opportunity of conferring with one of the Judges of the Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice in England for the purpose of ascertaining the practice there.

It may be useful to call particular attention to the decision of the Court of Justiciary in the milk prosecution Scott v. Jack ([1912], 2 S. L. T. 15). Practitioners have been well aware that, during the past four or five years, when consulted by milk-sellers who were charged with selling milk below the standard set up in the Regulations by the Board of Agriculture, though the accused would

probably explain that he sold the milk as it came from the cow, the poorness of the milk being probably accounted for by the fact that the cow had been fed so as to produce the greatest quantity of milk, yet it was their duty to inform the accused that such a defence, even though it were made out, was of no avail. This arose from the well-known English case, Smithies v. Bridges, where it was stated that if the liquid produced from the cow was below the regulation standard, then it was not genuine milk. The local authorities fastened on this theory, worked it for all it was worth, and found that prosecutions based on it led to convictions. These are now at end in Scotland. In the Court of Session case mentioned it has been held definitely that, if the milk has not been interfered with but sold as it came from the cow, then it is genuine milk, even though it is of poor quality, and the cows have been fed expressly with the intention of producing the largest quantity of milk. It will be remembered that last year it was laid down, in the case of Lamont v. Rogers ([1911], 48 S. L. R. 60), that proof that the milk had not been tampered with could be made by the farmer and his family and servants. The sanitary authorities must therefore now prove, in order to get a conviction, actual tampering, i. e., that subsequent to the milk being taken from the cow, water was added or solids abstracted. The difficulty of this task need only be mentioned. It is not going too far to say that the milk prosecution as it has been known during recent years is at an end.

Two recent decisions of the Court of Session in Company law, Romanes v. Garman ([1912], 2 S. L. T. 104) and Meyer v. Rio Grande Rubber Estates, Ltd. ([1912], 2 S. L. T. 173), relate to misrepresentations in the prospectus of the respective companies, and in both cases the pursuers were unsuccessful that is to say, the prospectus, though perhaps