556 The Law Newspaper Company Limited. character, is cited and received in Court as an authority, and is frequently referred to in new works. Whilst the SOLICITORS' JOURNAL will be useful to the Solicitors of the United Kingdom and in the Colonies, numbering probably 20,000, it is anticipated that the work will also be acceptable to many Members of Parliament, Magistrates, and official persons connected with the administration of the Law. Considering, also, the deep interest taken by the Public in the administration of justice, it is expected that the SOLICITORS' JOURNAL will find a place in all public Libraries and Newsrooms. It will especially comprise the following topics, selected with reference to the Profession: : New Statutes and Bills in Parliament. Joint Stock Companies Act, 1856. The shares have been fixed at £10 each, in order that a large body of Solicitors, to whom alone any shares will be allotted, may become shareholders. One-half of the Capital will be called up at once; and future calls, if any should be required, will be made at intervals of not less than six months, and no call will exceed £2 per Share. The general affairs of the Company will be administered by a Board of Directors, whose services will be given gratuitously until a dividend of £5 per cent. be paid. The promoters of this undertaking, however, desire to impress on their brethren in the Profession that a pecuniary return in the shape of a dividend is with them a secondary object. They hope to be able so to remunerate the Editor as to obtain the highest class of talent; and it is their wish that every Reports of Commissioners and Committees, and accepted contribution should be paid for. Parliamentary Returns. Discussion of Projects of Law Reform. Notes on the Law of Attorneys, Costs, and Evi- Decisions on the Construction of Recent Statutes; Legal Obituary. Law Promotions and Appointments. Business of the Courts, Cause Lists, Sittings, and Professional Lists, and an Abstract of the Gazette. The success of the SOLICITORS' JOURNAL may be considered certain; cordial assurances of support in all parts of the country having been received from gentlemen who have expressed their readiness to co-operate with the Directors by procuring subscribers, and the insertion of estate and other professional advertisements, so as to make the paper a valuable medium of communication, upon professional subjects, between practitioners in different parts of the kingdom. This feeling was expressed by so large a number of gentlemen attending the recent Provincial Meeting of the Metropolitan and Provincial Law Association at Liverpool, as to convince the Directors that the SOLICITORS' JOURNAL will supply a want that is strongly and widely felt. That meeting was an important professional event, which, highly satisfactory as it was to all who attended it, would have produced greatly increased benefits to the Profession, if its various points of professional and general interest could have been accurately presented to the Profession by some acknowledged organ of wide circulation. With these views the Law Newspaper Company Limited has been formed under the They desire to possess such a body of correspondents throughout the kingdom as to secure the knowledge and consideration, by the whole Profession, of every occurrence material to its interests. They especially trust that the Officers of all the Local Law Societies will be in constant communication with the conductors of the journal. They cannot doubt that such arrangements will tend to keep up that class opinion, involving class control, which is found to have so salutary an effect in every profession in checking misconduct and promoting honourable practice. The Directors do not feel that it will be possible to produce the First Number in a satisfactory manner earlier than the first week in January. The Weekly Reporter commences its current volume in November. The Directors, therefore, have made arrangements to supply subscribers to the SOLICITORS JOURNAL with the numbers of the Weekly Reporter issued during the months of November and December, so as to make the volume complete. The price of the SOLICITORS' JOURNAL, with the It is not intended to issue any double numbers. The Subscribers will, therefore, for £2 12s. a year obtain a publication of general legal information, a series of established reports, and a complete annual digest of cases; and, in announcing this price, the Directors would mention that the Jurist, with its digest, cost last year £3 4s. 6d., and the Law Times, with its digest, £3 14s. 6d. The subscription for the first year, ending in November, 1857, for the SOLICITORS' JOURNAL from January 3rd, 1857, including the Weekly Reporter from the 8th of November, 1856, will be £2 8s. post free. be published every Saturday morning in time for the early trains. The SOLICITORS' JOURNAL AND REPORTER will The following are the Directors of the Com pany until the first ordinary meeting :— New Statutes effecting Alterations in the Law. William Strickland Cookson (Clayton, Cookson, and Wainewright, 6, New-square, Lincoln's-inn, London), Chairman and Treasurer. Banner, Edward (Liverpool). Barnes, Keith (Lyon, Barnes, and Ellis, 7, Spring Gardens, London). 557 3. Annual instalments of money borrowed under recited act need not exceed one thirtieth of sum borrowed. 4. This and recited act to be construed as one. The following are the title, preamble, and sections of the act: Beamont, William (Beamont and Urmson, An Act to amend the Law relating to the Relief of Warrington). Bower, Thomas Holme (Bower, Son, and Cot- Lake, Henry (H. and G. Lake and Kendall, 10, New-square, Lincoln's-inn, London). Lowndes, Matthew Dobson (Lowndes, Bateson, and Lowndes, Liverpool). Ryland, Arthur (Ryland and Martineau, Birmingham). Shaw, John Hope (Shaw and Tennant, Leeds). Thorley, George (Thorley and Robinson, Manchester). Trinder, William Henry (Trinder and Eyre, 1, John-street. Bedford-row, London). Williams, William (Currie, Woodgate, and Williams, Lincoln's-inn-fields, London). OFFICES: 13, CAREY-STREET, LINCOLN'SINN-FIELDS, where all communications may be sent, addressed to the Chairman. It appears that by some mistake this Prospectus was not sent to the attorneys and solicitors generally until the circular of the Law Times had been issued. That circular states that " an attempt is being made to get up an opposition to the Law Times," not stating where or by whom it was got up; whether by some other barrister, or by some bookseller; but calling upon the persons addressed to “ in a few words their opinion of the services the Law Times had rendered to the solicitors, and its claims to their confidence." The response," therefore, does not appear to be of the importance attached to it. express NEW STATUTES EFFECTING ALTERATIONS IN THE LAW. POOR LAW AMENDMENT (SCOTLAND). 1. Power to Board of Supervision to appoint two general superintendents to assist in execution of act. 2. Powers and duties of general superintendents. the Poor in Scotland. [29th July, 1856.] WHEREAS an Act was passed in the eighth and ninth years of the reign of her present Majesty, intituled An Act for the Amendment and better Administration of the Laws relating to the Relief of the Poor in Scotland, and it is expedient that the said act should be amended: Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the authority of the same, as follows: 1. It shall be lawful for the board of supervision acting in the execution of the recited act, with the consent of her Majesty's principal Secretary of State for the Home Department, to appoint by their order in writing two fit persons to be general superinexecution of the said act, or of any other act which tendents of the poor in Scotland, to assist in the shall hereafter be in force for the relief of the poor in Scotland; and such general superintendents shall upon their appointment severally take an oath de fideli administratione officii, which may be administered by any member of the board of supervision, or any one of the judges of the court of session, or the sheriff of the county; and it shall be lawful for the board of supervision, with the consent of the Secretary of State, to assign to such general superintendents the superintendence of any district or districts in Scotland, and also the execution and performance of all such duties under the recited act as the board of supervision may, with such consent as aforesaid, think fit, and the board may with such consent remove such general superintendents or either of them, aud appoint another or others in his or their stead, and there shall be paid to such general superintendents severally such salary as, upon the recommendation of the board of supervision, the Commissioners of her Majesty's Treasury shall from time to time regulate and allow, such salary not to be less than three or more than four hundred pounds per annum, and to be paid out of any monies to be hereafter voted for that purpose by Parliament. 2. The general superintendents and each of them shall be entitled to execute all the powers which are by the recited act conferred upon the commissioners thereby authorised or directed to be appointed. 3. And whereas by the sixty-second section of the said recited act it is provided, that any loan of money borrowed for the purposes therein mentioned shall be repaid by annual instalments of not less in any one year than one tenth of the sum borrowed, exclusive of the payment of interest on the same: Be it enacted, that after the passing of this act such annual instalments shall not of necessity exceed one thirtieth of the sum so borrowed, exclusive of the said interest. 4. This act and the recited act shall, as far as is necessary for the purposes of this act, be construed as one act. NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. The Country Solicitors' Practice in the High Court of Chancery. By JOHN GRAY, Esq., Barrister-atLaw. 5th edition. By DAVID GRAY BEGG, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn. London: Lumley, 1857. pp. 532. WE are not surprised that this work has arrived at a fifth edition. It was from the first compiled with great care, well arranged, clearly and concisely written, yet sufficiently full and comprehensive for the object in view-namely, the instruction of the student and the aid of the practitioner. The successive editions comprised the various alterations which had taken place in the intervals of each; and the 6 Geo. 1, c. 18 to the present time. Mr. Thring observes that although the penalties to which persons employed in getting up certain companies were repealed in 1835, yet the common law relating to partnerships opposed a serious obstacle to joint stock companies, inasmuch as all the shareholders were required to be made parties to a suit for dissolution, and courts of equity would not interfere in partnership cases unless a dissolution were required. Moreover, every partner had an implied authority to bind his co-partners in all matters relating to the concern in which they were jointly engaged. Mr. Thring then clearly points out the principles on which the new act is founded: "(1) That incorporation with or without limited present edition just published has necessarily been liability is a right and not a privilege. much enlarged, in order to comprehend the numerous and important changes which have been effected by the recent statutes, orders of court, and practical decisions. ་ Mr. Gray, the original author of this Solicitors' Practice and of the Country Attorneys' Practice, has confided the present edition to Mr. Begg, a gentleman who has shewn himself well qualified for the task, but Mr. Gray has assisted the editor with his advice and superintended the volume through the press. We think the work will be highly valuable to provincial solicitors, enabling them readily to master all the important alterations that have taken place in the jurisdiction and practice of the Courts of Chancery, so far as it ought to be known by solicitors practising at a distance from the metropolis. It will also be invaluable to the student preparing for his examination in order to be admitted on the roll of attorneys and solicitors. It will be recollected that the candidate from the country, though usually well versed in the law and practice of conveyancing, has also to answer a sufficient number of questions in the departments of common law and equity and the practice of the courts. The present volume will therefore be of great service, and the new edition is well-timed in reference to the competition which now prevails for the purpose of obtaining the honorary distinctions to be awarded by the examiners, and carried out by presents of books from the Incorporated Law Society. The Joint Stock Companies Act, 1856, with an Introduction, Practical Notes, and an Appendix of Forms. By HENRY THRING, M.A., Barrister-at-Law. Stevens and Norton; H. Sweet; and W. Maxwell. 1856. pp. 152. Mr. Thring was engaged as counsel for the Board of Trade in preparing the Joint Stock Companies Act of last session, 19 & 20 Vict. c. 47; and is consequently well qualified to present the profession with a useful edition of the act. In an able introduction he has concisely stated the effect of former statutes relating to Joint Stock Companies from the "(2) That the credit of a company must be judged of by the creditor in the same way as he would judge of the credit of an individual; and that the only assistance that can be given him by the legislature is a ready access to a register, containing particulars of the capital of the company, and the parties liable to pay such capital. "(3) That the internal management of a company must be left to the company itself. "(4) That no person shall be liable in respect of the debts of the company unless his name is actually entered on the register of shareholders, thus excluding from liability all persons beneficially interested in shares who may not have become registered shareholders. "(5) That the right of suing individual shareholders shall be abolished, and contribution be enforced by proceedings taken against the company. "(6) That provision shall be made for the voluntary dissolution of companies." In treating of the manner in which the liability of ashareholder may be enforced for debts, the author observes that "By this portion of the act a considerable change has been made in the remedies of creditors. "Under the previous law, as soon as a company became insolvent, the quasi corporate tie was broken, and, the company being resolved into an ordinary partnership, each creditor became at liberty to sue any shareholder for any debts of the company. Such a course was unjust to the shareholders and inconvenient to the creditors. It was unjust to the members of a company that a single shareholder should be exposed to the full weight of a corporate liability, and be unable to obtain contribution from his fellow-shareholders, except through the medium of inconvenient to a creditor that his remedy should a dilatory and expensive process; and it was consist of a succession of actions against different shareholders, instead of being a process comprehending in its grasp the whole body of shareholders, and extracting from each his due proportion of the debts. Such a course moreover was opposed to the principle of equity, that has in view the distribution of assets amongst all the creditors in proportion to their claims, as it enabled any one creditor who might be more fortunate or more grasping than the others to obtain payment of his debt in full, leaving little or nothing to satisfy the equally just demands of the other creditors. Notices of New Books-Law of Costs. "These considerations apply no less to unlimited than to limited companies; the only difference is in the extent of liability. In limited companies the creditor can only look to the shareholders for unpaid calls, and beyond this can require nothing at their hands; while in an unlimited company he may treat the aggregate capital of the individuals comprising the company as a reserved fund in the nature of a guarantee for the solvency of the company, and may indemnify himself out of that fund in the event of the corporate assets proving insufficient. The injustice of suing individual shareholders has been remedied by this act, which compels a creditor, who desires to obtain payment from an insolvent company, to resort to the statutory remedy of winding it up, without giving him any option of resorting for payment to the persons composing the company." The introduction is followed by the act, to which practical notes are added, with directions for establishing a company, and an appendix of forms necessary for carrying the provisions of the act into effect The Practice in Lunacy under Commissions and Inquisitions. By JOSEPH ELMER, of the Office of the Masters in Lunacy. London: Stevens and Norton. 1857. pp. 315. This new edition of Mr. Elmer's Practice in Lunacy is accompanied by an Appendix containing all the useful Forms of Proceedings, with the costs thereof. It also comprises the Statutes and General Orders in Lunacy, adapted to the provisions of the Lunacy Regulation Act, 1853. To shew the utility of the work, we shall state some of the principal alterations that have been made in this department of law and practice. "A general commission has been issued to the Masters in Lunacy, in lieu of the special commission formerly issued in each case; "Juries are dispensed with, unless, in particular cases, it be found important to call them; "The inquiry as to the state of mind is, except under special circumstances, not carried back, but limited to the present time; "All matters affecting the person and property of the lunatic may, after the inquisition, be proceeded on before the masters, without any special order of the Lord Chancellor for the purpose; "The Masters' Reports in all ordinary cases contain the directions consequential upon them, and are submitted to the Lord Chancellor for confirmation without petition -the fiat of his lordship thereon giving to them the operation of orders; "The grant of custody, which was so expensive, is abolished; and the committees' security is settled by the masters, without the expense of referring it to the Attorney-General; "The various docume nts required in the proceedings are reduced in number and length, unnecessary recitals, and other common-form passages being omitted, and the ordinary directions being provided for by the general orders; 559 "Enlarged powers for the management of the estate are conferred upon the Lord Chancellor, and the masters; "And the provisions for ensuring, through the visitors and the masters, the proper care and treatment of the lunatic, are made more comprehensive. "The fees formerly payable on proceedings, and the per centage collected under the Lunatic Visitors' Act, are abolished, a graduated per-centage on incomes (with certain small fees) being constituted: and "For copies (other than those made by the parties) the stationer's charge only has to be paid." Minutes of Parliamentary Proceedings respecting Public and Private Bills, Committees, &c. Session 1856. By JAMES BIGG, Westminster: Waterlow and Sons; and Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. This annual volume comprises much valuable information. It contains-1. A General Summary of the Legislation of 1856; 2. A Summary of the Proceedings in Parliament during the whole of the Session; 3. A Statement of the Several Proceedings on Public Bills; 4. The like on Private Bills; 5. The Proceedings of Committees appointed by the House of Commons: on Opposed Private Bills: on Opposed Railway Bills; 6. The Proceedings of Committees appointed by the House of Lords; 7. Regulations respecting Public Petitions, and a Summary of Public Petitions. It also comprises information regarding new writs issued and new members sworn; and leave of absence to members. The resolutions of both Houses of Parliament and lists of statutes are also contained in the volume. And a full index renders all the information readily accessible. LAW OF COSTS. OF ACTION ABIDING EVENT OF AWARD. UPON the trial of an action at Nisi Prius a verdict was, by order of the Court and with consent, taken for the plaintiffs for the claim in the declaration and 40s. costs, subject to the award of an arbitrator, who was empowered to direct that a verdict should be entered for the plaintiffs or defendant, or a nonsuit be entered, and to whom the cause and all matters in difference between the parties were thereby referred ; and that the costs of the cause should abide the event and determination of the said award or certificate, and the costs of the reference and award or certificate should be in the discretion of the arbitrator. The arbitrator awarded that the verdict entered for the plaintiffs should stand with £31 14s. 6d. damages, which he adjudged and declared to be justly due from the defendant to the plaintiffs, and that the street lamps mentioned and referred to in the fourth count, in respect of which the plaintiffs claimed to be entitled to recover damages under the first count of the declaration, were to be delivered up to the defendant. He further ordered that each party should pay his own costs of the reference, and that the plaintiffs should pay the costs of the award. The Master taxed the costs of the action for the plaintiffs, and a summons on behalf of the defendant 560 ι Points in Equity Practice-Remuneration of Attorneys. A SUIT was instituted in August, 1831, and the defendant was duly served with a subpoena, but he never put in any answer, nor was it alleged he had ever appeared. The plaintiff died in March, 1835, and the defendant in 1837. In December, 1855, a bill of revivor was filed by the plaintiff's heir-at-law against the defendant's heir-at-law. The Master of the Rolls was of opinion that, if there were any equity, it could only be asserted by original bill, and that a bill of revivor would not eli A demurrer was accordingly allowed. 64 Bland v. Davison, 21 Beav. 312. REMUNERATION OF ATTORNEYS. AMONGST the papers read at the annual meeting of the Metropolitan and Provincial Law Association, held at Liverpool, in October last, was that of Mr. Edwin Field on the Autocracy of the bar and the system of prescribed tariffs for legal wages." For the present, we propose to deal with the latter subject, as one of great practical importance to our readers, and peculiarly interesting at the present time, when the Lord Chancellor and his commissioners are revising the rules by which the taxing masters are restricted in the allowance of equity costs. Mr. Field goes to the very root of the evil: he says— "The political economist tells you that of all legislative follies there is none so great as to try to regulate wages or prices. As a matter of science, I will leave to him the question whether law wages and prices are exceptions to his rule, and content myself, as a practical man, with briefly indicatingand the limits necessarily placed on this paper will not permit me to do more than indicate the folly (to use no harder word) of this system, to an improvement in which members of our association are aware much of the attention of its committee during the last two years has been devoted. The system not only insists on paying all the workmen alike, the boy admitted yesterday at the same rate as the most skilled veteran, but actually prescribes more pay for bad work than for good-for slow work than for quick. As far as regulations can do such Boodle v. Davies, 3 Ad. and E. 200; Fates v. Knight, 2 New Ca. 277, a thing, it encourages the ignorant and stupid. It pays us for lengthiness, and fines us for brevity. It is easy to draw out a verbose statement-difficult to make it concise. Take a day in drawing out, say, a statement of fifteen sheets, and it assigns you £5 wages. Spend a second day in reducing the statement to half its length, and it pronounces you derelict of half the first fee, and makes you lose the second day of your time besides! If a solicitor investigates the law and decides a point himself, it assigns him just nothing-but if he writes out the question and sends it to counsel, saving himself much time, much wit, and all responsibility; then, though a lower degree of skill and knowledge is competent to that work, it assigns, on an average, something like ten times more wages. Paleontologists know the animal from his foot-prints: from the tariff you would take the solicitor for a jackall. Other agents are paid, in degree, by a commission, and in some proportion to the value of the property (or article so to speak) on which the workmanship and labour is to be expended. This is the method nature takes for indentifying the interests of employer and employed. The merchant, the banker, the agent, the auctioneer, and in Scotland, and on the Continent, the lawyer too has, for his principal fee, a per centage. The broker has as much trouble in buying or selling £1,000 stock as £10,000. But his pay is according to the value to his employer of the thing committed to his agency. In the law, the interest of the lawyer is, by their system, made to oppose that of his client. Under it, rich and poor pay alike. The prescribed toll is the same for the donkey cart and the coach and six; and there are toll-inspectors appointed to see that they shall be the same. "This subject deserves full development. If the public wants quick work it should pay by the piece, and make it the lawyer's interest to finish everything at the earliest moment; instead of, as now, paying for every step-whether it may be forward or backward; on the direct road or roundabout. Suppose cabmen were allowed to take any road they liked, and paid by the distance they went; or were allowed to take their own pace, and paid by the hour, how would the public get served by them? But so the law tries it should be with both branches of the legal profession especially ours. Other evils arise from this system which I can but allude to. Think how much better the profession of medicine has worked, and how much higher it stands in public estimation, since the apothecary, charging only for drugs, had to pay himself for his advice and attendance by drenching us. It would be as reasonable to insist on this mode of pay for medicine being continued, as to insist on continuing such tariffs as are now forcibly imposed on us." Mr. Field then notices the improper and unseemly rivalry of various courts, in reference to the costs allowed to the practitioners therein : "The legislative scrambling and shopkeeping rivalry and puffing which the practitioners in almost every court of justice set up in Parliament as against some other, hoping to get hold of some of its trade, come out of the two subjects to which this paper is addressed. One court is put up almost every session now-a-days, and another is put down. The Chancery County Palatine Court of Lancashire, in whose empire I now stand, has extensively a |