century huge tomes in half a dozen volumes on consideration; tremendous folios in a dozen volumes on the signing of a contract, awe-inspiring treatises in one hundred volumes on the unenforceable contracts of an idiot. But this will come to pass because there is a demand for these things, for there never was a time when a publisher printed books simply for his health. And these two volumes will find many purchasers, because there are many actions brought to cancel written instruments, and because people are every day trying to crawl out of their agreements and every day there are people whose interest it is to have the other man forced to perform what he promised and because the lawyer of today before he goes into court wants to know everything the courts have said on the matter of his suit. It is needless to say that, like all his other writings, the author has produced a careful, accurate and trustworthy book. THE LEGAL PROFESSION IN UPPER CANADA IN ITS EARLY PERIODS. BY WIL LIAM RENWICK RIDDELL, Fellow Royal Historical Society, etc.; Justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario. Published by the Law Society of Upper Canada. Toronto. 1916. The author of this interesting historical study is one of the Canadian Judges whose names and fame are not confined to their own jurisdictions. Mr. Justice Riddell is a member of more than one American International Society; he is an honorary member of more than one State Bar Association, and his writings in American law journals and addresses before American lawyers have made him well known to the Bench and Bar of the United States from Portland to San Francisco. He is a frequent contributor to historical magazines, and if he continues his love for historical research, it is very probable that he will become in time the Lord Campbell of the Canadian Bench. Canada was at first a French possession, but was conquered by the English in 1760, who introduced into the territory by proclamation in 1763 the English civil and criminal law. There had been lawyers of course under the French regime, but the first law promulgated to affect lawyers was the ordinance of 1785, which declared that thenceforth no one should be permitted to practice as a barrister, advocate, solicitor, attorney or proctor at law who had not served for five years under a contract in writing with some advocate or attorney duly admitted and practicing in the courts. There was a proviso in favor of those called to the Bar or admitted to practice as advocates or attorneys elsewhere in the Empire. The candidates was also to be examined in the presence of the Chief Justice of the Province or of two or more Judges of the Courts of Common Pleas, and be certified by the Chief Justice or the Judges as of fit capacity and character to be admitted to practice law. The ordinance likewise provided that thenceforth barristers, advoctes, solicitors, attorneys or proctors at law (and also land surveyors), should not practice as notaries; that no notary was to act as land surveyor or barrister, etc., that "these several occupations of practicing the law in His Majesty's Courts in this Province . . . and of notary and land surveyor shall be held and exercised separately and by different persons to the end and purpose that the functions and duties of the one may not interfere with the other." All practitioners were given twelve months to elect which branches of the profession they would follow. This last provision was but following the English idea of two distinct branches of the legal profession, for to the present day in England the same person cannot be both barrister and attorney-if, being an attorney he desires to be called to the Bar, he must have his name struck off the rolls as attorney. As long as Canada remained a French possession there was no division in the legal profession; the same person might and often did exercise the function of advocate or barrister, and notaire (notary) and even arpenteur (land surveyor). In Ontario, while the two branches of the profession are still kept distinct, the attorney being admitted by the Court, and the barrister called to the Bar by the corporation of barristers, known as the Law Society of Upper Canada, and while one not a barrister cannot appear in Court but is restricted to the drawing of papers, etc., yet the same person may be both a barrister and an attorney. Two matters of interest to the American lawyer may here be noted. First, that though the province that was first known as Upper Canada has been since the confederation of all the provinces under the name of the Dominion of Canada, nearly fifty years ago, is called the Province of Ontario, the Order of Advocates, which has sole charge of legal education and admission to the Bar, is still known as the "Law Society of Upper Canada." Second, that when in 1873 the English Parliament passed the Judicature Act, which so radically reformed judicial procedure in that country, the name attorney was abolished and the name solicitor substituted. The reason for this was that through the novelists and satirists for more than a century the term attorney had become associated with rascality and thieving cunning. This unsavory order no longer attaches to the legal profession there, for there are no longer any attorneys in England; or in Canada, either. In 1797 the ordinance of 1785 was repealed by a statute which created the Law Society of Upper Canada and gave it the sole power to admit to the Bar. In 1822 the Society was incorporated and given power to own property, etc. Until the creation of the Law Society there was no provision for legal education; there is no record of any examination such as the ordinance of 1785 required. The Society required that a candidate for barrister must be five years on the books of the Society and one for attorney three years on the books and five years articled to a practicing attorney. The student passed no examination either before entering into articles or before being admitted to the Society; the sole judge of his "education, principles and habits of life" was his master or intended master. Nor was there any provision for the education of the student; he must rely upon what his master could and should teach him and upon what he could pick up. But before admission he must pay the sum of $40. When the student had been there three years on the books and had completed his five years of service under articles, he might present himself to the Court of King's Bench and be admitted and sworn in as an attorney, by paying a trifling fee to the clerk. When he had completed his five years on the books of the Society, he could apply to be called to the Bar, pay $80, enter into a bond to pay $10 per annum so long as he remained a member of the Society; and he was called as of course without examination or inquiry into his qualifications. In 1820 the Society passed a rule that all persons presenting themselves to the Society for their approbation previous to their admission upon their books, shall be required to give a written translation in the presence of the Society of a portion of one of Cicero's Orations or perform such other exercise as may satisfy the Society of his acquaintance with Latin and English composition and that no person who cannot give these proofs of a liberal education shall hereafter be admitted upon their books. In 1828, in order that students should have the benefit of seeing and hearing what the courts did the Society enacted that all students to be thereafter entered should keep at least four terms during their five years' entry, at York (Toronto), the seat of the Court of King's Bench and of the Society. In 1832 the examination of students was further provided for. Those who passed in as students were divided into Optimes, Senior Class and Junior Class. The Junior Class were to be examined in the English and Latin languages, in mathematics and and geography or history; the Senior Class in the English and Latin languages, geometry, algebra, moral philosophy, or the Greek language, astronomy and history; the Optimes in the English, Latin and Greek languages, in geometry, algebra, moral philosophy, metaphysics, rhetoric and the belels lettres, geography, astronomy and history. If the "Optime" failed to pass he fell into the Junior Class, as did the unsuccessful aspirant for the Senior Class. The examination for call was similar to that passed on admission and moreover the candidate examined "in the Principles of the Law of England, in the Science of Special Pleading, the Law of Evidence, the Law Relating to Trials at Nisi Prius and the Practice of the Courts." In 1842 a special examiner was appointed by the Benchers of the Law Society and in 1837 the term for university graduates was rdeuced to three years; others must serve five years. In 1854 it was provided that examinations for call to the Bar should thereafter be partly in writing and partly oral-questions were prepared by three Benchers (the Committee on Examinations) and were printed. Provision was made for a "Call with Honors" and curricula were set. In 1855 four lecturers were appointed and the failure to attend even one lecture lost the student his term. In 1872 a law school was established which with a slight interruption still continues at Osgoode Hall, Osgoode Hall, the seat of the Law Society of Upper Canada and one of the finest public buildings in Toronto, was begun in 1821 and named after Canada's first Chief Justice. It contains a great library, the law school and the rooms in which the Appellate Courts of Ontario sit to hear all causes. A splendid collection of the portraits of the Judges hang on its walls, and it is one of the places in Toronto well worth a visit by the tourist, especially if he be a lawyer. The Law Society is governed by thirty benchers elected by ballot for five years, by all barristers on the roll, and benchers ex officio, viz., the Attorney Generl and ex-Attorney General of the Province and all retired Judges of the Superior Courts. Its head is the treasurer, who occupies a position akin to that of the Batonier of the French Bar. It appoints the court reporters, publishes the official reports, examines all candidates for attorney (solicitor) and has sole jurisdiction to admit, to discipline and to disbar from practice a barrister at law. Ontario has certainly been far in advnce of our American states in the matter of legal education and admission to the Bar. When in most states admission was almost free to all, Ontario required for an attorney a service under articles for four years with a practicing attorney and a preliminary examination equal to that of a university matriculation. And for a barrister, it required five years' study after the same preliminary examination, unless the candidate was a university graduate, and then it took three years. And when our greatest law school, Harvard, was a one-year school, with no preliminary requirements, the Law School of Osgoode Hall required three years' attendance of a university graduate and five years of all others. HANDBOOK OF THE LAW OF WILLS. By GEORGE E. GARDNER, Professor of Law in the Boston University School of Law. Second Edition. By WALTER D. DUNMORE, Professor of Law in the Western Reserve University Law School. West Publishing Co. St. Paul. 1916. HANDBOOK ON THE LAW OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. By WM. L. CLARK, JR. Third Edition. By I. MAURICE WORMSER, of the New York Bar; Professor of Law, Fordham University Law School. West Publishing Co. St. Paul. 1916. These are new editions of two of the well-known Horn book series. One who is familiar with these handbooks for the law student need only be told that in neither case has the text been altered, but in both cases the editors have added the new cases of value which have been decided by the courts since the last edition. Some changes have been noted and numerous additions made, especially in the notes. Mr. Gardner's work on Wills first appeared in 1903, while Mr. Clark's on Private Corporations-which is much the best known of the two-was first published in 1897, and this is the third edition. BOOKS RECEIVED. ARON (H. G.). The Gist of Real Property Law. Writers Publishing Co., New York. 1916. HUSBAND (R. W.). The Prosecution of Jesus: Its Date, History and Locality. Princeton University Press, Princeton. 1916. 1916. JUDSON. (F. N.). The Law of Interstate Commerce and Its Federal Regulation. T. H. Flood & Co., Chicago. BLACK (H. C.). RIDDELL (W. R.). The Rescission of Contracts and Cancellation of Written The Legal Profession in Canada in Its Early Periods. Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto. 1916. GARDNER (G. E.) and DUNMORE (W. D.). Handbook of the Law of Wills. West Publishing Co., St. Paul. 1916. CLARK (W. L.) and WORMSER (I. M.). Handbook of the Law of Private Corporations. West Publishing Co., St. Paul. 1916. All communications for the editor should be sent to JOHN D. LAWSON, 209 N. 3rd Street St. Louis, Mo. |
