by no means confined to his numerous professional friends. Ever since the Court of Admiralty was thrown open to the whole of the bar he had enjoyed the largest share of the junior business in that court. It was not till March last that he obtained the well-deserved honour of a silk gown, but the last five months enabled him to establish a firm position as a leader before the same tribunal, and it was hoped that a still higher position was in store for him. Mr. JAMES STUART WORTLEY was the oldest surviving Queen's Counsel, having obtained silk in 1841, when he was a barrister of only ten years' standing. He probably filled a greater variety of legal posts than any other member of the bar. After obtaining a leading position on the Northern Circuit, he became successively standing counsel to the Bank of England, AttorneyGeneral of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Solicitor-General to the late Queen Adelaide. In 1846 he sacrificed his hopes of professional advancement to hold the office of Judge Advocate-General under Sir ROBERT PEEL, but six months later his party were driven from office. He was next elected to the lucrative office of Recorder of London (retaining his seat in Parliament), but in 1856 he resigned this post to become Lord PALMERSTON'S SolicitorGeneral, this being the only instance for many years of that office being held by a Privy Councillor. Unfortunately his health compelled him, within a few months, to retire from his post, and thus each occasion of his accepting office proved an injury to his prospects of advancement. Mr. CHARLES STUART WORTLEY, M.P., has thus far followed in his father's steps by obtaining a seat in Parliament within two years of his call to the bar.

THE RECENTLY ISSUED parliamentary paper containing the correspondence between the Foreign Office and our representative at St. Petersburg, on the subject of the expulsion of foreign Jews from Russia, brings down the history of the LEWISOHN case to the 18th of July. It will be remembered that Mr. LEWISOHN is a native of Hamburgh, of Jewish extraction, but naturalized in EngJand and trading in London, and that, on visiting St. Petersburg on mercantile business last year, he was, although the bearer of a passport with the signature of Lord GRANVILLE and the visa of the Russian consul in London, ordered to leave for the frontier within twentyfour hours. The present return contains a long memorandum from M. CIESZKOWSKI, the legal adviser of her Majesty's Embassy at St. Petersburg, on the subject of the laws and police regulations of Russia affecting native and foreign Jews, and this is followed by an opinion from the same gentleman on the subject of Mr. LEWISOHN'S case. He states that if Mr. LEWISOHN'S expulsion was based on the mere fact of his being a Jew, the action of the authorities was not in accordance with the laws of the Empire, since it contravened both the 2nd and 16th articles of the "Regulations for the Issue of Passports," the latter of which articles invests every foreigner who arrives in Russia with a duly legalized passport with an unrestricted right of residence in the Empire for six months. He further expresses his opinion that, even if Mr. LEWISOHN had reached St. Petersburg with a passport which the bureau des étrangers did not consider valid for the purpose of residence in the city, and if the consular officer whose visa appeared upon the passport did not know him to be a Jew, and therefore he must be looked upon as residing in the city without a legal written document, the order for his departure within twenty-four hours was not justifiable. The opinion then refers to section 5, prolongation of article 614, of the Code of Laws (Passports) (being temporary rules issued in 1874 of recall from St. Petersburg of persons not supplied with passports) by which only persons of immoral conduct, of no means of subsistence, suspected of attempts against public peace and order, are liable to ejection from the capital by administrative process; while by section 2 of the same rules persons found

resident in St. Petersburg but unprovided with passports, if their lives are ascertained to be peaceful and inoffensive, are to be provided with a temporary passport enabling them to reside in the capital for not more than six months. After the receipt of this opinion, Lord GRANVILLE addressed a dispatch to our representative at St. Petersburg narrating the circumstances of Mr. LEWISOHN'S expulsion from St. Petersburg, and also stating that in answer to an inquiry addressed by himself the Russian Government had declined to allow Mr. LEWISOHN to return to Russia on matters of business. The dispatch then points out that the Treaty of 1859 between England and Russia, providing for the subjects of each of the contracting Powers visiting the dominions of the other, applies to all British subjects, without distinction of creed, and that consequently the expulsion of Mr. LEWISOHN is a violation of the provisions of that Treaty. He therefore requests from the Russian Government an explanation of what is apparently a violation of the treaty rights accorded to her Majesty." Mr. LEWISOHN's claims do not, therefore, seem to have made any progress; and it is to be observed that the present correspondence makes no allusion to the request for compensation which was originally made on his behalf by Lord GRANVILLE. The answers given by Sir CHARLES DILKE to the inquiries of Baron De WORMS on Tuesday do not indicate the probability of a speedy solution of the question. "Pending the result of the friendly communications which are taking place," the Under-Secretary declined to make any statement as to the intention of the Government to protect Mr. LEWISOHN from a second expulsion upon his re-visiting Russia.

THE LATE MR. CLARKSON, Q.C. Ir is with extreme regret that we have to announce the premature decease of this gentleman, which took place at Pinner, on the morning of Friday, the 19th inst. Mr. Eugene Comerford Clarkson, who was the third son of the late Mr. Frederic Clarkson, of Doctors' Commons, so well known as the head of one of the leading firms of proctors, was born in the year 1831, and was educated at King's College, London. He was admitted a student of Lincoln's-inn on the 27th of March, 1850, and he was called to the bar by that society in Hilary Term, 1854. His original intention was to practise as a conveyancer, and he soon acquired a valuable and increasing practice of this nature. His drafts were from the first remarkable for their anxious elaboration and polish, for the produc tion of which result he thought no amount of labour too great. He was never tired of repeating the maxim, "Nihil simul factum est et perfectum," and it is probable that, had he continued to practise conveyancing, his drafts would by this time have been celebrated as models of artistic finish, attained, however, at the cost of an amount of labour and anxiety altogether dispropor tioned to the visible results. But the Act of 1857, which threw open to the whole of the bar the practice of the Admiralty and Ecclesiastical Courts, theretofore the exclusive "preserve" of the Faculty of Advocates, opened to him a new career, and although his characteristic difidence caused considerable hesitation at first, before he could make up his mind to abandon the known for the unknown, he very soon confined his practice entirely to the Court of Admiralty, where he achieved success with a rapidity and completeness which astonished himself much more than it did those who knew him. So rapid was his rise in professional position that, so long ago as 1868, when a creation of Queen's Counsel was impending, it was authoritatively, though unofficially, intimated to him that the list of nominations would be kept open for a few days in order to give him an opportunity, if he wished, of applying for the honour. The same diffidence to which we have already referred induced him,

however, to let the opportunity pass by, and it was not until the autumn of last year that he found himself constrained at last to apply for a silk gown, in order to obtain some relief from the ever-increasing demands of a practice which threatened to become overwhelming. His application was favourably received, and in March of this year he was called within the bar. Short as the time is which has since elapsed, he had already obtained a recognized position as one of the leaders of his court when the melancholy accident occurred which has cut short a career of so great promise. In May last, as he was fondling an old favourite fox-terrier, the animal, which was in his arms, suddenly caught him by the ear, with force enough to draw a few drops of blood. Nothing seems to have been thought of the affair at the time, and as precautions were taken against evil results, which indeed were not apprehended, and as no inconvenience was then experienced, the whole matter was practically forgotten. On Sunday, the 14th inst., however, he complained of a pain in the neck and shoulder, as if a hot iron was being run down it," and on the next day he was so ill as to put himself under medical advice. Symptoms of hydrophobia, at first ambiguous, but soon unmistakeable, began to appear, and the disease developed with startling rapidity, until, after much suffering, it terminated, as before stated, in his death on the morning of the 19th inst., after an illness of five days only. The deceased leaves a widow and five sons, the eldest of whom, now at Cambridge, is, we believe, intended for the bar. Mr. Clarkson was buried at Highgate Cemetery on Wednesday, many professional friends being present at the funeral.

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have been worth while to notice this proposal but for this assumption, which is an error; because if the court were sitting it would follow as of course that there could be no vacation in the offices where the detail work of the legal machinery is carried on. The Attorney-General appears to have shared the delusion that the offices of the court are altogether closed during the vacation. As a fact the offices of the courts are open all the year round, except on Sundays, Christmas-day, Good Friday, and the Monday and Tuesday in Easter and Whitsun weeks. In fact, the very thing is done which the Attorney-General undertook should be carefully considered and brought before the House next session-that is to say, the offices are always open "with shifts of clerks." The vacation work has, this week, been again very heavy, and there appears to be quite enough to occupy the two Vacation Judges nearly the whole of their time. Mr. Justice Kay, on Wednesday last, was unfortunate enough to miss his train, and did not arrive in town until three o'clock, the hour of eleven having been fixed for the sitting of the two judges as a divisional court. Perhaps the rumour, after all, is not true which says that one of the Vacation Judges has had a bed-room fitted up for him in Lincoln's-inn Hall, in order to be near his work.

CHAMPERTY.

ALTHOUGH the question of maintenance, as raised by Mr. Bradlaugh against Mr. Newdegate and his solicitor, has not been elucidated by any very recent cases, there have been two decisions during the present legal year upon the kindred subject of champerty. Ball v. Warwick (29 W. R. 468) came before Mr. Justice Grove on

VACATION.

THE two amendments respecting the Long Vacation proposed by Mr. H. Fowler in the House on Wednesday received the support of several lawyers in the House as well as of those members who look upon the question of legal vacations from the point of view of the suitor. It is impossible to deny that there is a great deal to be said with regard to the inconvenience caused by the stoppage to business resulting from the Long Vacation. For instance, there is no doubt whatever that if the courts sat all the year round there would be work enough to give them full occupation. It cannot, however, be forgotten that the work of a judge is of a very arduous nature, and that those who occupy that exalted position are of necessity men of mature age, who have, so to speak, grown old in gaining the experience which entitles them to hold that position. As a rule, they are not so hungry for work as to be able to go on without periodical intervals of rest. It may be fairly suggested that every judge should not take his vacation at the same time, but it must be borne in mind that any arrangement which involved continuous sittings of the High Court and Court of Appeal would also require that a sufficient number of judges should be appointed to enable every one to take a holiday at some time during the year. Such a plan in these days of economy appears to be hardly feasible, and besides this we could hardly treat our judges like the clerks in a Government office, and restrict them to taking their "leave" at such a time as will not cause any court to be closed by reason of no judge being available. The Judicature Act has already curtailed the legal vacations by about a month, and it is evident that the time is fast approaching when they will be further shortened.

Mr. Fowler's second amendment, which he subsequently withdrew, related to the offices of the court, and proposed that, as far as they are concerned, the Long Vacation should cease on the 10th of October instead of, as now, on the 24th. This proposal was based on the assumption that the offices are closed during the vacation. It would not

Reynolds, having obtained a verdict for £150 in an action against a railway company, in which an order for a new trial had been made, and not having funds for the second trial, procured from a person named Loe an advance of £30, and signed an agreement whereby, in consideration of the loan, he undertook to pay to the latter one-third of the amount of any damages to be recovered by him against the railway company, but in case of his not obtaining a verdict, Loe was to have no claim upon him in respect of the advance. Upon the second trial Reynolds obtained a verdict for £200, but this amount was attached by the defendant on account of a judgment against Loe, one-third of the damages being paid into court by the company to abide the trial of an interpleader issue between Loe and the defendant, who relied upon the defence that the agreement to pay to Loe one-third of the damages was void on the ground of champerty. This plea was answered, by the counsel for Loe's trustee, by the argument that there could be no champerty when there was no undertaking to carry on the suit and no indemnity for costs; but Mr. Justice Grove entered judgment for the plaintiff. He observed that a collateral undertaking to carry on the suit to its termination might well be implied from the terms of the agreement, but he did not think that such an undertaking was a material element in the offence of champerty. Moreover, such an undertaking would be of no value to the lender, since the borrower might take the money and refuse to proceed, and the plea of champerty would justify his refusal. His lordship also pointed out that no such collateral undertaking was given in Hutley v. Hutley (L. R. 8 Q. B. 112), one of the most recent authorities on the subject. He held that the agreement before him contained all the elements of champerty, the consideration being contingent and entirely dependent upon the chance of recovering a verdict from the railway company. There was clearly a campi partitio, an agreement to share the result of a litigation.

In Plating Company v. Farquharson (29 W. R. 510, L. R. 17 Ch. D. 49) the question of maintenance was raised in a somewhat novel form upon a motion for the

committal of certain parties for contempt of court. The plaintiffs had obtained a decree from Vice-Chancellor Bacon establishing the validity of a patent for nickelplating, of which they were the owners. The defendants served a notice of appeal, and afterwards inserted in the Birmingham Daily Post an advertisement asking for subscriptions to aid them in carrying on the appeal, on the ground that the case was a test action, and another one in which a reward of £100 was offered to anyone who could produce documentary evidence that the process of nickel-plating was carried on before a specified date. The plaintiffs thereupon took out a summons for the committal of the printers and publishers of the newspaper, their counsel arguing that the latter had been guilty of contempt of court and subornation of perjury, and that the soliciting funds for the appeal, and the offer of a reward for evidence, amounted to the offence of champerty; but the application was summarily rejected by the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice James observing that the motion could not have been successfully made against the defendants, and still less could the mere printing of the advertisements be treated as an improper act.

THE JURISDICTION OF THE RAILWAY COMMISSIONERS.

ALL persons interested in those questions between railway companies and the public, in which the Railway Commissioners have or have been supposed to have jurisdiction, will do well to study volume 3, part 3, of Neville and Macnamara's Railway Cases, just issued. It will be found that out of fourteen cases there published in no less than five was the jurisdiction of the commissioners questioned on prohibition, and that the jurisdiction has now been defined by the Court of Appeal, not exhaustively indeed, but with sufficient precision for most of the practical purposes of litigation. We propose to go shortly through the two more important of these cases, and to endeavour to show the general result of them. The two cases are South-Eastern Railway Company v. Railway Commissioners (L. R. 6 Q. B. D. 586), and Great Western Railway Company v. Railway Commissioners (L. R. 7 Q. B. 182.) In the former case it was held that the commissioners have jurisdiction to order structural works to be executed at a station; in the latter case that they have not jurisdiction to restrain overcharges.

In the South-Eastern case the application was for an order to compel the company to enlarge the Hastings Station, to provide a better booking office, waiting room, refreshment room, and general accommodation therein; to alter the existing platforms and provide new ones; and to improve the warehouse and cattle accommodation. The commissioners were also asked to order the company to enlarge the platform at the St. Leonards' Station, and to provide a new road of approach. The commissioners made an order generally in favour of the applicants, explicitly ordering some of the works asked for, and indirectly ordering others. The Queen's Bench Division (Cockburn, C.J., and Manisty, J.) prohibited the commissioners, but Lush, J., dissented, and there was, as might have been expected, an appeal. The Court of Appeal reversed this decision (in a judgment from which Brett, L.J., partly dissented); but it must not be understood from this that they decided wholly in favour of the company. The demurrer was “ allowed generally"; Lord Selborne intimating the opinion that neither party had been wholly right or wholly wrong. The judgment has far more important results in favour of the public than might be supposed, for, in the the first place, it had been contended for the company that, independently of undue preference, the commissioners had no jurisdiction whatever; that is to say, that the companies might withhold facilities for traffic and travelling as much as they pleased,

so long as they withheld them from all persons equally; and this argument was much strengthened by the undoubted fact that, independently of undue preference, no complaint had ever been preferred to the Court of Common Pleas, which preceded the Railway Commissioners in the administration of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act of 1854. This plausible contention has now received its deathblow in the judgment of the Court of Appeal, and will not, we suppose, be heard of again.

Secondly, and this was of course the main question decided, it is now settled that the commissioners have power to order the construction of "works." It had been contended for the company that all that the com. missioners could do was to order particular arrangements of traffic, that one train should start at a particular time, or from a particular place, and so forth, but that as soon as any buildings became necessary to carry out any proposed order of the commissioners, such proposed orders could not be made-a contention which, carried to its logical extent, would enable a company to dispense with stations and even with platforms altogether. This contention has also been shown to be groundless, and it seems to follow from the judgment, though it is not quite precisely expressed, that companies are bound, subject to a limitation which we will consider presently, to increase their stational accommodation in proportion as their traffic increases.

The third point which we have to notice is in favour of the companies. It is settled that the commissioners, when they have decided that "works" must necessarily be constructed, cannot prescribe to companies a particu. lar mode of constructing them, but must leave the mode of construction to the companies themselves. This is reasonable enough, inasmuch as the statute gives no such precise powers as could support particular orders of this kind.

It is, however, left a little unsettled what particular works may be ordered, and what may not. The extension of a platform was held not to be within the powers of the commissioners to order, but this was because the extension of it was dependent upon the enlargement of a particular bridge, which the court held to be not within the powers of the company. It is left uncertain, therefore, whether platform accommodation is comprehended in the term facilities; but we think it follows from the general scope of the judgment that it is. Refreshment rooms and covered platforms, however, are clearly held not to be within the jurisdiction of the commissioners to order," however desirable they may be for the comfort or convenience of the passenger." The ratio decidendi appears from the following passage in the judgment of Lord Selborne :

"The result is, that the commissioners had, in my opinion, jurisdiction over the subject-matter of the complaint, and had also jurisdiction to order some, at least, of the things contemplated by their judgment, provided that they did so in proper manner and form; but that, as to other things which they (apparently) intended to order, they had no jurisdiction, partly because those things were beyond the company's powers, partly because they were not facilities reasonably necessary for the particular purposes mentioned in the Act, and partly because they would have required particular structural works to be executed which are not prescribed in the Act, and which cannot be supposed to be the only possible means of affording the facilities which the Act does require."

We cannot but think that in this paragraph the court has trespassed to some extent on the jurisdiction of the commissioners to determine questions of fact, which has never been disputed. Surely, what is "reasonably necessary," and "what is the only possible means," are questions for the commissioners to decide upon the evidence before them. It is to be regretted, too, that the judgment contains no definition of the term, according to their respective powers," in the enactment that "every railway and canal company shall, according to their respective powers, provide all reasonable facilities, &c." These words were applied-whether rightly

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or wrongly we will not now consider-to the case of an inability to enlarge a bridge. But their general and ordinary application seems to us to be far different. The reference seems to us to be to the specific parliamentary powers-to the powers of the particular Acts under which a company is governed. We should, therefore, have two important and precise limitations-the limitation of land, and the limitation of capital. It would not be a very strained interpretation of the statute if the control of the commissioners were to be held to extend to all acts which they could do upon their own land, out of their own capital not specifically appropriated, for faciliating the conduct of their business.

Turning to the Great Western case, said by Manisty, J., to be "one of the most extraordinary applications that have ever come under the consideration of any court," we think it somewhat fortunate that it should have been decided before the issue of the Report of the Select Committee on Rates and Fares; since it had no doubt been considered, prior to the decision of this case, that the effect of the decision of the Scotch Court of Great Session in Aberdeen Commercial Company v. North of Scotland Railway Company (3 Nev. & Mac. 205) was that the Railway Commissioners have jurisdiction to order a railway company not to charge beyond their statutory limits. If the Great Western Railway case had not been decided, as it has been, to the contrary effect, express legislation conferring such a jurisdiction could not be reasonably recommended. will now be absolutely necessary for the committee to make some recommendation on the subject; for the decision of the English Court of Appeal is not binding on the Scotch courts, and it would be a very undesirable state of things that the jurisdiction should be less extensive in England than in Scotland.

It

With regard to the decision itself-that under the powers to order reasonable facilities for traffic, the commissioners have no power to order a company to desist from an overcharge affecting all persons alike-we cannot but think that it is correct. The reason of the decision is well put by Brett, L.J.:

"There is no statement that the overcharge was made with the intent to prevent the traffic of a passenger, or the progress of any train, and there is no statement that that overcharge is of such an amount or of such a nature as would prevent any traffic of any passenger, or forwarding of any train at all, and it is on account of the absence of either of those allegations that this complaint is not one which the Railway Commissioners had power to entertain. It is consistent with this complaint that precisely the same number of trains would go, at precisely the same time, carrying precisely the same number of passengers as if the alleged overcharge had not been

made.'

case

PRACTICE-SERVICE OF WRIT OUT OF THE JURISDICTION-BALANCE OF CONVENIENCE. In the of Royal Exchange Shipping Company v. McMillan, before Cave, J., Vacation Judge, on the 19th inst., in which the Master of the Rolls had granted leave to serve the writ on the defendants Macmillan out of the jurisdiction, a motion W&S DOW made by these defendants to discharge the order. The action was for breach of a contract made in London by the defendants McMillan with the defendants Patton & Co., as agents for the plaintiff company for the building of three ships. The plaintiffs are registered in England, and the defendants Patton carry on business in London. The defendants McMillan carry on business at Dumbarton, on the Clyde.

The cause of action arose in reference to the third ship, which had not been delivered, and upon which the defendants claimed a lien, and which they had registered in Glasgow. The action was for damages, for an account, for an injunc

local

tion, and to restrain the sale by the defendants McMillan of the third ship. It was in evidence that there was a court at Dumbarton, but that as the amount in dispute was large, the defendants in any proceedings in that court could have removed them to Edinburgh, and they had moreover brought an action in Greenock to have the ship sold. CAVE, J., was of opinion that the only point he had to consider was as to the comparative cost and convenience of bearing in Scotland or in England. As the contract was made in England, and the defendants McMillan resided in Scotland, the plaintiffs might go to either place, and he considered on the evidence there was sufficient to show that the proceedings in England would be more convenient and less costly than proceedings in Scotland, and therefore he dismissed the motion with costs.-SOLICITORS, Waltons, Bubb, & Walton; McDiarmid & Teather.

COMPANY-WINDING UP-STAY OF ORDER-WISHES OF EXPENSE -DELAY. In a case of In re SHAREHOLDERS Wheal Elizabeth Company, before the Vacation Judge, on the 24th inst., a motion was made to stay the drawing up of a winding-up order made on the 17th inst. The applicant was a large shareholder residing in Scotland, and he stated that he had not been asked as to his wishes, and did not know that a liquidator would be appointed on the hearing of the petition. On the 17th inst., the usual compulsory order was made on the application of a small shareholder, on the ground that the company was a bubble, and the provisional liquidator was by the order appointed official liquidator. The company did not oppose the order, but it was now alleged that the counsel who appeared were not properly instructed by the company, and it was now further alleged that the company had incurred no debts, that the only assets were the application and allotment moneys which were virtually intact in the hands of the company's bankers. The applicant now asked that the winding-up order might be stayed to enable a meeting of the shareholders to be called to decide on the steps to be taken, and as to whether a voluntary or compulsory winding up should take place. The application was opposed by the petitioner and also by the company. CAVE, J., was of opinion that it was now too late to stay the drawing up of the order. The applicant could if he had desired have appeared on the hearing of the petition, of which he must be taken to have had notice. The motion must be refused with costs.-SOLICITORS, Snell & Greenip; Beall; Davis.

The

COMPANY-WINDING UP-TRANSFER TO COUNTY COURT -SECTION 41, COMPANIES ACT, 1867.-In the case of In re Middlesborough, Redcar, Saltburn-by-the-Sea, and Cleveland District Permanent Benefit Building Society, also before the Vacation Judge on the 24th inst., a petition was presented by shareholders for the winding up of the society, which was not registered under the Building Societies Act. assets of the company were stated to amount to over £200,000. By a clause of the rules, members could, on giving notice, cease to be members, and become creditors for the amount of their shares. It was now asked by a member who had become a creditor that the winding up might be transferred to the county court under section 41 of the Companies Act, 1867. CAVE, J., made the usual windingup order, but refused to transfer the winding up to the county court.-SOLICITORS, Bell, Brodrick, & Gray.

HABEAS CORPUS-EXTRADITION ACTS, 1870 AND 1873ACCESSORIES AFTER THE FACT-RECEIVING STOLEN GOODS -OFFENCE IN ENGLAND.-In a case of In re An Application for Habeas Corpus, before Cave and Kay, JJ., Vacation Judges, sitting as a divisional court on the 24th inst., an important question arose on an application to make absolute certain writs of habeas corpus, as to the construction of the Extradition Acts. The Act of 1870 refers to the surrender of "fugitive criminals" and by section 26 the term "fugitive criminal" means any person accused or convicted of an extradition crime committed within the jurisdiction of any foreign State, who is in, pected of being in, some part of her Majesty's dominions." It appeared that a burglary and robbery of a quantity of jewellery was committed in Brussels on the 3rd of Jane,

or sus

and that one of the principal felons had escaped to England with the stolen property, some of which was found shortly after the robbery in the hands of five persons who had tried to pawn the same. The five persons had been subsequently arrested under the Extradition Acts, and warrants for their extradition issued, on the ground that they were accessories after the fact, and had received the stolen goods with a guilty knowledge. Writs of habeas corpus had been obtained which it was now sought to make absolute. For the Crown and the Belgian Govern. ment it was contended that the warrants of extradition to Belgium had been duly issued. It was submitted that there was evidence of collusion between the principal and the present prisoners before and after the crime sufficient to cause the principal to be in effect the agent of the prisoners in Belgium, and so in effect cause a constructive receiving by them over there, and thus an offence within the Acts. It was contended that the court was not sitting on appeal from the magistrate, and that they could not release the prisoners unless they were satisfied that the magistrate had absolutely no evidence before him sufficient to establish a prima facie case against them. CAVE, J., was of opinion that the prisoners must be discharged. The question was whether they were "fugitive criminals" within the words of the Act of 1870. In his opinion they could not be said to be within the definition of these words in the 26th section, and, in his opinion, there was no evidence that any of them had committed any crime within a foreign State. There was no evidence that any of them had been in Belgium, though there was evidence that the principal had committed a felony in Belgium, of his escape to England, where he had been shown to be in the company of the prisoners. There was strong evidence of their having received stolen goods in England, but none of their having done so in Belgium. In his opinion there was no prima facie evidence before the magistrate to show an extradition crime had been committed in Belgium, and, therefore, the latter had no jurisdiction to grant the extradition. KAY, J., was of the same opinion, and that there was no direct evidence to show that any crime had been committed in Belgium. He could not see any actual or constructive possession or receiving by the prisoners in Belgium, and no evidence to justify their extradition.-SOLICITORS, Solicitor to the Treasury; El. Lee; W. F. Morris.

THE COURT OF APPEAL.

MR. JUSTICE WILLIAMS has addressed the following letter to the editor of the Times :-"Your correspondent, W. B.,'in discussing the future constitution and prospects of the Court of Appeal, has, it seems to me, made a fatal omission when enumerating the causes of the unquestioned success of the existing court. Speaking from practical experience of the courts of law, as distinguished from the chancery courts, I am satisfied that a most material element in the success of the Court of Appeal has been the fact that the Lords Justices have been mostly men, not only of great ability and acknowledged legal learning and authority, but also men possessed of great knowledge and present and continued practical experience of the detailed course and procedure of the trials, the results of which come before them for review. The importance of this is far less than in the chancery procedure. If the Court of Appeal should come to be governed and guided by men who are relieved from going circuit, and who have not their knowledge freshened and recruited by the actual experience of trying actions, then I venture to predict a certain failure for a court which has promised so well at its starting. It would be a great mistake to suppose that the decisions of the Court of Appeal are not open to, and have not produced, a good deal of hostile criticism. One of the most learned, cautious, and experienced lawyers lately expressed to me his opinion that the decisions of the present Court of Appeal would not hereafter be cited with the same weight and authority as the decisions of the Exchequer Chamber. If this be well founded, which I do not believe, the cause is one which your correspondent has entirely overlooked, and which lies at the root of the necessity for the Lords Justices keeping up their knowledge and experience of practice, and it is this-In former times the questions that went by way of appeal to the Exchequer Chamber and House of Lords

were generally well defined, exact, and limited questions of law, raised and reserved with care and elaboration, and involving sound legal principle, and adopted by both sides as the questions of law upon which the cause and the rights of the parties turned. Now, on the other hand, every appeal is a re-hearing of the whole cause on its merits, and points and questions of fact, as well as law, that may have been overlooked or neglected, or even abandoned, and not thoroughly investigated at the trial, are liable to be raised and seriously relied upon for the first time in the appellate court, so that, without a thorough practical acquaintance on the part of the appellate judges with the course and incidents of trials, the grossest miscarriage of justice is liable to take place, and in fact does take place, even when unexceptionable law and admirable legal principles are laid down. The practical conclusion, therefore, to which I desire to call attention, is this: that to insure continued success in the Court of Appeal, either the procedure must be so altered as to limit the points and questions for review to precise and definite questions of law, or mere legal principles, or, if you are to retain the great advantages of the present more complete appeal, your appellate judges must be men who continue to have practical experience of the ways and manners of trying the actions, and the issues that they have to review.-Your obedient servant."

The above letter has been answered by the following, from "B."-" Mr. Justice Williams, in the letter you insert this morning, says that in the Appeal Court the grossest miscarriage of justice is liable to take place, and in fact does him, through you, to name a few instances, say half-a-dozen take place.' This is serious. Will you allow me to ask to begin with, and whether any of those miscarriages have Should he favour me with an answer, would you be so good been set right by the House of Lords, and if not, why not? as to insert it, if addressed to you?

OBITUARY.

THE RIGHT HON. JAMES ARCHIBALD STUART WORTLEY, Q.C.

The Right Hon. James Archibald Stuart Wortley, Q.C., formerly recorder of the city of London, died at Belton Hall, Lincolnshire, on the 22nd inst. (while on a visit to Earl Brownlow), at the age of seventy-six. The deceased was the third son of the first Lord Wharncliffe, and was born in 1805. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where be graduated second class in classics and first class in mathematics in 1826, and he was afterwards elected a fellow of Merton College. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in Hilary Term, 1831, and he was a member of the Northern Circuit. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1841, although of only ten years' standing, and he enjoyed for many years a good leading business both on circuit and in London. In 1844 he was appointed standing counsel to the Bank of England, and in the following year he became AttorneyGeneral of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Solicitor-General to Queen Adelaide. He was M.P. for Halifax in the Conserva. tive interest from 1835 till 1837, when he was an unsuccesgful candidate, and in 1842 he was elected M. P. for Buteshire. In January, 1846, he accepted the office of Judge Advocate. Genera! in Sir Robert Peel's Ministry, and was sworn a member of the Privy Council, but in the following July he retired with his party. In 1850, on the death of the IIon. Charles Law, Mr. Wortley was elected recorder of the city of London, and he held that office till 1856, when he accepted the office of Solicitor-General in Lord Palmerston's Ministry. but he retired in the following year. In 1859 be resigned his seat for Buteshire and stood for the West Riding of Yorkshire as a Conservative, but he was unsuccessful, and he did not again seek to enter Parliament. It may be remembered that Mr. Wortley took an active part in the movement against the relinquishment by the House of Lords of its appellate jurisdiction. He was the senior living Queen's Counsel, having held that rank for exactly forty years. He was a bencher of the Inner Temple, and had served the office of treasurer of that society. He was also a magistrate for Surrey, and the West Riding of Yorkshire, a deputylieutenant for the West Riding, Buteshire, and Forfarshire, and a commissioner of lieutenancy for the city of London. The deceased was married to the only daughter of the first.