403 WOOLLEY, SAMUEL. sen. Birmingham, Iron Merchant. Birmingham. Pet EVEREST.-April 5, at Eltham, Kent, the wife of Lancelot Feilding Everest, barrister-at-law, of a son. MARRIAGES. folicitor, to Kate Mason, daughter of the late William Mason, of Windsor. POLLOCK-SALT.-April 12, at St. Saviour's Church, St. George's-square, 8.W., April 18.-Messrs. BAKER & Sons, at the Hoskin's Arms Hotel, Oxted, at 2.30 p.m., Ernest Murray Pollock, barrister-at-law, to Laura Helen, daughter of Thomas Salt, M.P., of Stafford. DEATHS. CHINERY.-April 8, at 1, Red Lion-square. Bloomsbury, George Whitmore Chinery, solicitor, late of Twickenham, aged 76. HEWITT.-April 1, Henry Marmaduke Hewitt, Inner Temple, barrister-at-law, aged 44. of Assurance (see advertisement this week, p. 4). Leasehold Properties (see advertisement April 2, p. 4). Country, 288. 6d.; with the WEEKLY REPORTER, 538. Payment in adadvertisement this week, p. 4). vance includes Double Numbers and Postage. Subscribers can have April 22.-Messrs. FULLER & FULLER, at he Mart, at 2 p.m., Freehold Building their Volumis bound at the office-cloth, 28. 6d., half law calf, 5s. 6d. Land (see advertisement, March 26, p. 4). CONTENTS. CURRENT Topics ......... 389 LEGAL NEWS 390 COURT PAPERS. NEW ORDERS 400 392 400 LAW SOCIETIES BANKRUPTCY NOTICES 400 SOLICITORS' BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION. INSTITUTED 18 58. For the Relief of Poor and Neoossitous Solicitors and Proctors in England and Wales, and their Wives, Widows, and Families. The FIFTY-EIGHTH HALP-YEARLY GENERAL MEETING of the Members of this Association will be held at the Law INSTITUTION, Chancery-lane, Mr. W. Beriah Brook will move :-"That no Autumn General Meeting of Members be held this year." JAMES THOMAS SCOTT, Secretary. INTEMPERANCE. I MESSRS. JOHNSON & DYMOND beg AUTHORITY. to announce that their Sales by Auction of Plate, Watches, Chains, Jewellery, Precious Stones, &c., are held on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, The Companies Acts, 1862 to 1883. THE MORPHIA HABIT and the and Fridays. The attention of Solicitors, Executors, Trustees, Every requisite under the above Acts supplied on the ABUSE of DRUGS. and others is particularly called to this ready means for the disposal of Property of deceased and other shortest notice. clients. TC BOOKS and FORMS kept in stock for immediate A PRIVATE HOME (Established 1864) Messenger bare enabled to incluido Targe or small quantities at short notice (if required). Upper and Higher Middle-classes suffering from the Sales of Furniture held at private houses. edilir.printed in the proper form for registration and abivate simbol rosmes if required. Medical attendant, distribution. SHARE CERTIFICATES, DEBENTURES, Valuations for Probate or Transfer. Terms on ap plication to the City Auction Rooms (established &c., engraved and printed. OFFICIAL' SEALS designed Dr. J. St. T. Clarke. 1793), 38 and 39, Gracechurch-street, E.C. and executed. No Charge for Sketchés. For terms, &c., apply to the Principal, Mrs. Mespre. Johnson & Dymond beg to notify that their Auction Sales of Wearing Apparel, Piece Goods, Household and Office Furniture, Carpets, Saturday excepted). HODGKINSON & CO'S and other PAPERS. F. MOEDER, 248, 249, and 250, Tottenham-court- Can be obtained through all Stationers. FUI RICHARD FLINT & CO. (Late ASH & FLINT), Stationers, Printers, Engravers, Registration Agents, 19, FLEET-STREET, LONDON, E.C. (ourner Annual and other Returns Stamped and Filed. LAW UNION FIRE & LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY. ESTABLISHED IN THE YEAR 1854. The only Law Insurance Office in the United Kingdom which transacts both Fire and Life Insurance Business. CHIEF OFFICE-126, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. The Funds in hand and Capital subscribed amount to upwards to upwards of £1,900,000 Sterling. By express provision in the Company's Deed of Settlement, and by the Conditions of the Policies of the Company, the Capital and Funds of each Department are and always have been kept distinct, and under no circumstances oan the Capital or Funds of one Department be applied to the payment of Losses or Expenses incurred in the other Department. CHAIRMAN : JAMES CUDDON, Esq., of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law. Extract from the Report of the Directors for the year ended 30th November, 1886 :In the Fire Department new Insurances were effected for an aggregate amount of £6,994,418, yielding in new Premiums the sum of £10,618 128. 4d. In the Life Department during the same period 252 Policies were effected, insuring $236,245, the new Premiums received thereon amounting to £8,085 198., of which £1,298 168. was paid away for re-assurance, Seventeen Proposals for insuring £21,150 were declined, and 46 Proposals for insuring £73,180 were uncompleted in the year. Nine Life Annuities for £679 28. 10d. were granted, the purchase-money for which was £5,742 78. 8d. Sixteen Annuities for £999 10s. 6d. became void during the year by death. The Claims under Life and Endowment Policies amounted to £46,519 38. bd., which amonnt, although in excess of the Claims for the year 1885, is below the expectation. The total amount of losses by fire, paid and outstanding on 30th November, was £21,615 158., being about 45 per cent. of the net Premiums Toc-ived in the year. The average rate of Interest realized on the assets of the Company (whether productive or unproductive) was £4 118. 2d. per cent. Liberal Settlement of Losses. Moderate Rates of Premium. Profits divided every five years in the Life Department. FRANK MOGEDY, Actuary and Secretary. NY. .... 455 410 410 asiness. 437 456 erling 458 CASES REPORTED THIS WEEK. portion of the business arising out of Chancery causes commenced In the Solicitors' Journal. Bull, Ex parte, In re Bew in the Manchester and Liverpool District Registries indicates that Forster, Ex parte, In re Hanson .. 466 much still remains to be settled in reference to this portion of the Allen, Re, Simes v. Simes Great Western Railway Co. v. McCarthy 429 work. For the purpose of business in chambers the convenience Linwood v. Andrews 410 Hamill v. Lilley M. Melachrino & Co. v. The Mela Law v. Philby 437 of solicitors who have to come up from the country cannot be cbrino Egyptian Cigarette Co. 410 Murfitt v. Smith 460 altogether lost sight of, and the same remark applies in a lesser Macalpin v. Young 409 North Central Wagon Co. v. Man- degree to applications made in court. Then there is the question In the Weekly Reporter. shire Railway Co. (No. 1)... 443 whether the district registrars are to oscillate between London North Central Wagon Oo, v. Man- chester, Sheffield, and Lincoln and their respective districts with a view of performing the Board of Trade, Ex parte, In re shire Railway Co. (No. 2)....... 447 multifarious duties assigned to them as registrars, chief clerks, Mutton Official Receiver, Ex parte, In re and taxing masters. If the judge is to take the interlocutory Rogers 457 Smith v. Smith and Graves......: Board of Trade, Ex parte, In re Soper v. Arnold.. 459 work in London, it would appear more convenient that he should Rowlands .. Veale & Co. v. Automatic Biler be attended by the officials who are on the spot, and that the Feeder (Limited) Wilcock, In re........ 454 Lancashire officials should not be called away from their duties at a distance. Again, if the record of the whole of the proceedings in each case is to be preserved in one place, that one place should refer to authenticnotes of interlocutory proceedings. Many other minor LONDON, APRIL 23, 1887. points of procedure are likely to crop up from time to time, which will require a small code of rules or regulations to settle. We CURRENT TOPICS. observe, by the way, with much pleasure, from Mr. Justice KEKEWICE's observations, that there has apparently been a change IT SHOULD BE NOTED that Mr. Justice STIRLING will derote of plan with regard to the judge who is to try the Lancashire Monday in each week in the present sittings to chamber business, causes, and we gather that it is now intended that some other instead of Friday as heretofore, and that he will take motions on judge shall go down to Lancashire to try the causes marked for Fridays. Mr. Justice KekEwICH, so as as to prevent the results to which we drew attention last week. 457 453 ... 438 The Solicitors' Journal and Reporter. be the place of trial, seeing that it is often necessary at a trial to unting to posals is d. became Premite S. ON TUESDAY Mr. Justice North announced that he intends next week to take further considerations, and that in the following week (commencing the 2nd of May) he will take witness actions. MR. DANIEL, Q.C., has written to the Times stating that his experience In consequence of the pressure of other business, and especially of the great number of adjourned summonses, this learned judge has as a county court judge taught him that “ no man ever signs his name heard no witness actions since the last Michaelmas Sittings. twice exactly alike. If two signatures are produced exactly alike one of them is imitated." The statement is, perhaps, too broadly expressed, but there is high judicial authority for the proposition that very little reliance ought to be placed on small differences in the IN THE COURSE of the hearing of a motion on Tuesday, Mr. Jus- formation of letters. In Robson v. Robson (2 Addam's Rep. 79) Sir tice NORTH asked for a copy of the notice of motion, and said that he John NICHOLL remarked that the evidence afforded by handwriting wished that solicitors would always furnish a copy of such a notice was very inconclusive “from the dissimilarity which is oftea for the use of the court. Mr. Cookson, Q.C., who was engaged in discernible in the handwriting of the same person under different the case, explained that he understood it to be the practice of the circumstances.” Few persons, he said, wrote so uniformly that taxing master to disallow on taxation the costs of a copy of a dissimilar formations of particular letters were grounds for concludnotice of motion supplied for the use of the judge. Mr. Justice ing them not to have been made by the same person. And in a North said that in his opinion those costs ought to be allowed. subsequent case (Constable v. Steibel, 1 Hagg. Eccl. Rep. 61) the If a notice of motion was at all complicated it was essential that same judge took'occasion to point out that dissimilarity in the the judge should have a copy of it before him, and it was very handwriting of the same person may be occasioned by a variety of cir. inconvenient that he should have to borrow the copy supplied to cumstances the health and spirits of the writer, his writing matecounsel. rials, his position, and his hurry or care. It is true that in recent times more weight bas been attached to the evidence afforded by tions” for the registrars of the Probate Registries which have separated in date by over fifty years, and the conclusion that they 1, Guve elsewhere the amended “rules, orders, and instruc- a comparison of handwriting, and in the Lovat Peerage case, in 1885, the learned law lords carefully scrutinized two signatures be en framed for the purpose of giving effect to the decision in In could not be the signatures of the same person exercised a consider: the Goods of Price (ante, p. 348), that probate is in future to be able influence on their decision. But the conclusion as to th: granted of a will whereby a married woman disposes of her handwriting does not appear to have turned on any special forma, reparate property in the ordinary form, and without the words of tion of letters or other eccentricities, but upon the general limitation hitherto used. The old rule (No. 15 in the rules re- character of the handwriting. The one signature was the bord; lating to the Principal Registry and No. 18 in those relating to well-written signature of an educated man,” the other was that of a the District Registries), which provided that, “ in granting pro- boor. The fact is that small peculiarities in handwriting are very bate of a married woman's will made by virtue of a power, or administration with such will annexed, the power under which instance of this came to light in the Tichborne case. apt to be dropped. It may perhaps be remembered that a remarkable In the adthe will purports to bave been made "must be specified in the mittedly genuine letters of the real Roger Tichborne the following Rrant,” is repealed, and it is provided that, in granting probate of peculiarity was observable. From a very early period, up to the during coverture, or letters of administration with such wills it occurred at the end of a word, but in his letters after the year annexed, it shall not be necessary to recite in the grant or in the 1851 this eccentric practice was altogether abandoned. Tricks of oath to lead the same, the separate perronal estate of the testatrix, handwriting may be of some importance in the comparison of or the power or authority under which the will has been, or letters written about the same time, but they are of no value in purports to have been, made ; and the probate or letters of ad- the comparison of handwriting written at dates severed by an ministration with will annexed are to be in the ordinary form without any exception or limitation. interval of years. THE VERY REASONABLE APPEAL made by Mr. Justice Kekswich to AN INTERESTING Account is given in the current number of the to the most convenient mode actie transacting the interlocutor The easiest that which new legislation is frequently carried on the a very curious thing in itself that we have not had an insurance other side of the Atlantic makes the statute books of the different also a further question whether the chief clerk could make a perStates a much more accurate index to the opinions of the people sonal order for payment of any such sum. In the case in question than with us; and when we find the laws of a large number of the action was for partition, and the defendant had, throughout the them setting in the same direction, this may perhaps indicate the proceedings, been in default, not having entered an appearance probable tendency of opinion among ourselves. There seems no to the writ. The judgment was for partition by the judge at sign of this at present, however, with regard to the election of chambers, and the difficulty which subsequently arose in effecting judges. Fourteen States originally intrusted this to the Legisla- the partition was not anticipated. Under the circumstances it is ture; of these all but five have gone over to popular elections. But doubtful whether, even if the point had been foreseen, the court upon another point in the same connection even the Americans are would have had power to insert in the judgment anything not cautious, and California alone stops the salary of any judge who asked for by the statement of claim. On this point there was no keeps a cause undecided after more than ninety days from the decision. But Mr. Justice STIRLING held that a chief clerk has no hearing. In general, the legal profession can only be entered by more power to award a sum by way of owelty of partition than an examination under the direction of the courts, but Indiana is commissioners of partition would have had in cases where that content to take integrity instead of knowledge ; and every voter of power was not given by the judgment. He also decided that good moral character may be admitted as an attorney-at-law. More there is no power, in awarding such a sum, to make a personal practical for ourselves it may be to notice the education laws. In order for payment. every State but three the Legislature is required to provide for the maintenance of free schools, while eighteen States provide also for a State University in connection with their system of free educa THE LIST OF CASES to come before the two divisions of the Court tion. In two, moreover, a public library must be kept open in of Appeal includes 66 from the Chancery Division ; 9 from the every town. American legislation, again, is interesting, as shewing Chancery Court of the County Palatine of Lancaster; 77 from the the manner in which special dangers are dealt with. In their own Queen's Bench Division ; 5 from the Probate, Divorce, and Adliterature the Americans have freely revealed the corruption of miralty Division ; and 12 appeals in Bankruptcy. The total of politics. Their statute books exhibit the manner in which this these appeals is 169, whereas a year ago the number of appeals in will be dealt with. Thus, in two States, “lobbying " is declared the list was 184, and at the last sittings 189. to be a felony; and one of these defines it as “ seeking to influence the vote of a member of the Legislature by bribery, promise of reward, intimidation, or other dishonest means”; while in another THE CAUSES in the lists of the Chancery Judges comprise 130 the mutual promises of two members to support each other's Bills before Mr. Justice Kay; 152 before Mr. Justice CHITTY; 190 berender them criminally liable. It is curious, too, to note that in fore Mr. Justice North; 140 before Mr. Justice STIRLING; and one State no salaried officer of a railroad can hold a seat in the 149 before Mr. Justice KEKEWICH, making a total of 761 causes, of Legislature. The Maine Liquor Law, of course, is well known ; which upwards of 420 are witness actions. A year ago the total but two other States-Iowa and Kansas-have now taken the same step, and in the latter State a brewer has claimed protection under was 669 causes, and at the last sittings 820. the United States Constitution for the damage done to his property, which has been rendered useless. An appeal to the Supreme ON LOOKING at the Queen's Bench Division Cause List it will be Court of the United States in this matter is now pending. The observed that the number of causes for trial with juries is 405, and department of private law is, of course, less interesting. With of those to be tried without juries 384, showing that the jury and regard to real property, the natural tendency has been at work : non-jury cases are becoming nearly equalized. A year ago the tenures have been simplified, entails abolished or restricted to one numbers were, 583 with juries, and 490 without. generation, and the rule of equal distribution has been introduced. The previous state of the law has generally been ascribed to the interest of the ruling class. Perhaps this will account also for the curious provision we find in the Civil Code of Georgia, by which the rights of creditors are to be favoured by the courts, and every THE LAND TRANSFER BILL. facility is to be afforded them to defeat any efforts to deprive them III. of their just rights. The marriage laws åre, of course, freer than We concluded our last week's notice by an observation, suggested with us; but it is worthy of note that five States and most of the by one of the new features in the Bill—confirmation of bounterritories forbid the inter-marriage of first cousins. Marriages daries—to the effect that probably, unless special precautions are between blacks and whites are generally prohibited, and the law as taken to guard against them, greater difficulties will be met with to the negro's equality of rights is easily satisfied by punishing the in the future manipulation of certified boundaries than in their white offender equally with the black. In Pennsylvania and registration as conclusive in the first instance. As we propose to Tennessee absence for two years, coupled with a report of death, devote a separate section later on to the discussion of the whole justifies a re-marriage ; and, should the absent spouse return, he is question of maps, plans, boundaries, descriptions, alterations, and But the diversities between all these different systems are, of inquiry so suggested, and will proceed to consider the third, and, course, endless, and must greatly complicate legal relations between as we believe, the really most important and beneficial new feature citizens of different States. Surely where the diversities, as is introduced by the Bill. often the case, are merely on matters of detail, the common sense of the Americans will ultimately overcome State jealousies, so as IV.-THE INSURANCE FUND. to allow some common system to be established. The unbending rigidity which mere justice has hitherto rendered necessary in all dealings in the Land Transfer Office would, we submit, have proved simply intolerable if applied on any extensive COMMISSIONS FOR PARTITION are seldom issued, the present practice owing to the extended freedom which the existence of the insur scale and to more or less unwilling subjects, and it is principally being (where partition, and not a sale, is directed to direct that ance fund will confer upon the officials that we have ventured to the partition be carried out in chambers: Suche commissions had express our confident expectation that the present Bill will prove decree directing the commission gave authority for such an awara, with so special a subject-matter as landed property exactness and but when the decree gave no such authority they could not do so: certainty Pare a no less important than facility and despatch, and it tained in Mole v. Mansfield (15 Sim. 41) and person Needham functions of the insurance fund, we shall strive to show the limits (19 Beav. 316). In a case before Mr. Justice Stirling on Wed- as well as the extent of its proper use. "ay last (Re Cooper, Cooper v. Cooper) the question was raised General aspect of the insurance system. In the first place, it is 1 nake per e in question roughout the 1 appearance the judge at in effecting stances it is n, the court anything not there was DE clerk has a artition than where that decided that ze a persons 1854 to consider the subject of the registration of title with adopted by the Registration Office were not only justifiable, but provided for out of the general surplus of the registry fees, " thus risk to the State admits of estimation with tolerable exactnessOwing to this omission, the registry practice in England has all thus : the sources of risk will be (i.) first registrations of absolute along been fixed upon the horns of a dilemma. If the registrar had and qualified titles, and confirmations of titles and boundaries ; acted as ordinary buyers of land do, “ chancing" an occasional error and (ii.) registered dealings. The Report of the Land Transfer in order to expedite business, he would have been abusing the con- Commissioners of 1870, and the evidence therein referred to (p. fidence reposed in him by the sleeping owners of property, whose xx., par. 43) is conclusive, if anything ever can be, that the prorights he was thus registering away without consulting them. tection offered by the existing practice to purchasers on sales is Very properly, the rules embraced the other alternative-namely, absolutely perfect, and this is repeated and confirmed by the Bar to make the registrar stricter than ordinary purchasers, but at the Committee (Land Transfer, pp. 63 and 68—71). Therefore, it same time as nearly as possible infallible; and as a fact no mis- seems that if the registrar can exercise the same amount of vigitakes involving loss have yet occurred in the Land Registry lance on first registrations as is usually given by ordinary purOffice. chasers on sales, the losses from this source would be very trifling. But the administration of such a system must be a great The losses to be expected on registered dealings are amply responsibility, which the registrar has probably felt the weight of exemplified from the statistics of the Australian assurance funds more than once. For it must be remembered that not only does which are, shortly, that, in an aggregate of transactions that the possibility of error and damage to innocent persons occur have taken place in the seven Australian colonies which have when land is brought under the Act for the first time, but also on adopted the Act in the course of the last thirty years, amounting every registered dealing with the registered land that afterwards to about £400,000,000 value, the aggregate of losses requiring takes place. Both Lord Westbury's and Lord Cairro's Acts give compensation from the fund has been £2,500. a registered purchaser for value 'an absolute title as against all 2. Will it be a tax ?—The proposal is to levy one farthing in the unregistered claims ; and it is the opinion of all authorities that pound on first registration with an absolute or qualified title, and such claims would have to be postponed even if they had previously one halfpenny in the pound on every subsequent dealing for value, been registered and their erasure from the register had been effected one-balf of which is remitted if such dealing takes place within by fraud or mistake. On this the Bar Committee tersely remark : ten years of the first registration. The following table of costs, If this feature of the system had been understood by the public, picked out at random at various points of value from £100 up to it might, perhaps, have materially reduced the number of £50,000, will furnish the means of judging as to this. In the applications for registration under the Act. It does not appear, third column will be seen the total expense of a transfer for value po far as the evidence goes, to have exercised any influence? apart from professional charges ; the office fees are calculated at Persons who heard that they were to acquire an indefeasible title the present Land Registry rates; the 15s. out of pocket includes to their own land do not seem to have adverted to the fact that a fixed fee of 10s. for altering the certificate of title and the fees a new method was devised by which an indefeasible title against for declarations, forms, and postage. themselves might by possibility be acquired by other persons.” Office payments on a Transfer for value (Land Transfer, p. 41). To avoid this danger in practice, the under the Proposed System. same repulsive rigidity at all doubtful points has been introduced Value of To Insurance Office Fee for into subsequent registered dealings as had previously charac Registration. Expenses. 1,000 3,000 here intended on the conduct of the officers of the land registry. 10,000 To quote again from the Bar Committee : -" The precautions 50,000 104 3 4 |