1st, the principle that the intention of the testator should regulate the construction of his will; and 2nd, the principle that no unnecessary obstacles should be placed in the way of persons making their own wills.

The clause proposes that a will applicable in its terms only to personal estate shall, "unless a contrary intention appear," have effect also with respect to real estate. Your Committee think this is an improper provision. If legal presumptions be introduced into wills, giving them effect beyond the words which they actually use, persons making their own wills, and using ordinary language expressive of their meaning, will be liable to have them interpreted in a manner quite contrary to their intentions.

Your Committee have thus pointed out some particulars in which it appears to them that the Bill requires amendment. They do not think it necessary to enter more minutely into its details.

They have only to add that, comparing the Lord Advocate's Bill with Mr. Gordon's, they very much prefer that of the Lord Advocate. Mr. Gordon indeed proposes to retain Tenure, and the Society (differing in that respect from your Committee) has expressed its concurrence in that proposal. But Mr. Gordon proposes to retain Service, which the Society has expressed its desire to see abolished; and though his Bill contains many provisions to be found also in the Lord Advocate's, it contains no others that your Committee would be willing to adopt, except section 27, which preserves heritable securities notwithstanding the discharge of the personal obligation, section 28, which has been already referred to, and section 29, which facilitates the clearance of the record in sales under bonds and dispositions in security.

The Bill of the Lord Advocate, with the amendments suggested by your Committee, will, in their opinion, be a very valuable measure, effecting important improvements in our system of conveyancing, and it is therefore earnestly desired that, with those amendments, it may pass into an Act in the present Session of Parliament. JOHN C. BRODIE, C.

DISSENT.

I dissent from the Report on the following clauses:

4. To retain the Charter of Novodamus would be inconsistent with the whole theory and scope of the Bill, which is intended to abolish feudal tenure, and sever the connexion between superior and vassal. Any advantages which are now derived from the use of the Charter, could, I believe, be equally well secured by some other means.

30. I think this clause should be approved of. Forms of conveyance, which were first introduced into our practice by comparatively recent legislation, ought to be directory only. As such they are of great utility, but, when prescribed under sanction of nullity, they become, in my opinion, dangerous and more likely to do harm than good.

37. I think an enlargement of the equitable powers of the Court in the direction aimed at in this clause would be of great benefit. Probably some of the details of the clause are capable of amendD. CRAWFORD.

ment.

EDINBURGH, 13th May 1873.

RESOLUTIONS.

1. The Society approves of the abolition of the system of feudal tenure of land proposed by the Lord Advocate's Bill, and adopts the suggestions on that subject made in the Committee's Report.

2. The Society is further of opinion that the present system of service of heirs should be abolished, and that, subject to the safeguards suggested in the Report as to cases of disputed succession, an heir should be entitled to complete his title by notarial instrument prepared by his agent, and duly recorded.

3. As to the other subjects embraced in the Bills, the Society adopts the Report of the Committee, approving generally of the Lord Advocate's Bill in preference to Mr. Gordon's, and suggesting a variety of amendments on the clauses and details thereof,-except in regard to the 4th and 30th clauses, on which the Society adopts the views expressed in Mr. Crawford's dissent.

EDINBURGH, 16th May 1873.

Reviews.

Compendium of the Law relating to Schools, Schoolmasters, and National Education in Scotland, with Digest of all the Acts of Parliament relating to Education, and an Appendix containing the Education Act of 1872. By ALEXANDER MACDONALD, Writer, Glasgow, Author of Handy-Book relative to Masters, Workmen, Servants, and Apprentices, etc. Glasgow and London: W. R. M Phun & Son.

THIS is not the least meritorious among the numerous manuals produced by the new Law of Education, and it is not the worse for being written by one who is a man of real ability as well as a lawyer. Mr. Macdonald has not only given a clear exposition of the recent Act, but has also explained the previous law, which has not been absolutely abrogated by it. The arrangement is convenient and the style lucid. The Appendix of Acts includes the clauses of the Lands Clauses and Commissioners Clauses Act incorporated, the Industrial Schools Act, the necessary parts of the Poor Law Act as to assessment, and the various forms and rules required in working the Act.

Economic Sophisms. By FREDERIC BASTIAT. Translated from the Fifth Edition of the French by PATRICK JAMES STIRLING, LL.D., F.R.S.E. Author of the " Philosophy of Trade," etc. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd.

Political Economy, far from being alien to Jurisprudence, forms no unimportant part of its extensive domain. We therefore deem a notice of this work deserving a place in our pages. The author is of European celebrity, and Dr. Stirling has placed his great work within the reach of English readers by a most accurate and elegant translation, with notes, showing he fully appreciates the value of the work and his sympathy with its author. We are the more. induced to notice the translation because it comes from the pen of a member of our profession who has already distinguished himself more than once by his labours in the thorny field of Political Economy. His works were considered worthy of translation, and are now perhaps fully better known in other countries than in his own, affording another illustration of the Scripture truth as to the neglect of the mental great by their own kindred. The present translation is seasonable at the present crisis of the conflict between capital and labour. It would be well if employers of labour and trades unions would study the enlightened views of Bastiat. They might be convinced of the fallacies of many of their views, and of the great fact of the identity of their interests. The Frenchman writes at once with the terseness of the logician and the brusqueness of his countrymen, so that it will be difficult for the most stolid to lay down the volume when once he has opened it. Richard Cobden has well said, "Bastiat is almost the only political economist whose style is brilliant and fascinating, whilst his irresistible logic is relieved by sallies of wit and humour, which make his Sophismes as amusing as a novel."

H. B.

The Hindoo Law of Adoption. By W. H. RATTIGAN, M.A. (of Lincoln's Inn). Wildy & Sons. 1873.

THIS is a valuable addition to the recent literature of Hindoo law, evoked by what has been happily termed the Bengalee "genius for litigation." Mr. Rattigan's previous work, "Select Cases on Hindoo Law," is well known to practitioners in Indian cases, and has been frequently cited in the Courts. The present work is a development of the subject of adoption, which to some extent had been treated in the former work under the leading case of Rangama v. Atchama, in which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, on an elaborate review of the authorities, laid down the principle that, according to Hindoo law, a person could not, one adopted son being alive, adopt another. The work before us contains a very able and clear exposition of the principles upon which the Hindoo law of adoption rests; and although the ground has to some extent been traversed by others, the present work has the advantage that its

author is peculiarly qualified by intimate acquaintance with native custom and knowledge of the sacred books of law in the original language. The work is thus important as a practical treatise on Hindoo Law, for there are many questions on the subject of adoption hitherto unsettled by any decision of unquestionable authority, and which will depend for their solution upon principles to be deduced from the original sources. It is also interesting to the historical student as affording a trustworthy means of comparison between the custom of adoption as developed and sanctioned by the sacred traditions and records of the Hindoos and similar customs known to have prevailed amongst other branches of the great Aryan stock, particularly as developed, along with the patria potestas, in the family system of the Roman law. It is a useful characteristic of Mr. Rattigan's work that he takes pains to note the distinction between the various schools of Hindoo law upon points where they differ. These different schools represent a variance of custom between extensive districts, and it is most essential to understand the difference, in order safely to apply a decision of the Courts in one part of India to a case arising in a family belonging to a district where a different school of law prevails.

SIR,

Correspondence.

SHERIFF-CLERKS DEPUTE.

To the Editor of the Journal of Jurisprudence.

May 7, 1873.

Ever and anon we see statements in your Journal and elsewhere as to the inadequacy of the salaries of Sheriff-substitutes, and urgent claims put forward on behalf of these officers. But there is another class of officers belonging to the Sheriff Courts whose services seem to be quite ignored. It must be known to every practitioner before the Sheriff Courts that a very great proportion of the business of the Court, and for which the Sheriff-clerks get the whole credit, is managed and transacted by the Sheriff-Clerk Deputes, and yet there is never a word said about the miserable remuneration they receive for their very responsible and multifarious labours. The Law Courts Commission, it is true, included them in their report with a view to improve their condition, but it would appear that our Liberal Government are to give them the go-bye like the Sheriff-substitutes. This is surely unjust, and you would be doing a praiseworthy act were you to bring the weight of your influence to bear in getting the injustice rectified.-Yours truly,

SMALL-DEBT CIRCUIT COURTS.

A. B.

SIR,-A decree in absence pronounced in the Circuit Court of this district is practically useless, as the defender, by consigning the

expenses decerned for, along with ten shillings to meet further expenses, at any time before implement of the decree has followed upon a charge, can obtain from the Sheriff-Clerk Depute a warrant sisting execution for three months, or till the next Circuit Court.

During the herring-fishing season the population of this town is increased by about ten thousand strangers, all of whom leave the district at the end of the season. The fishermen run up accounts with tradesmen here, and, as might be expected, considerable balances are owing at the close of the season, to recover which legal proceedings have to be taken, and in most cases decrees in absence are pronounced. The defenders then get themselves reponed, leave the district, and are never heard of again.

This is undoubtedly a great scandal, and one which can only be remedied by Act of Parliament, either abolishing the Circuit Courts, or providing that the warrant sisting execution should only be effectual till the next ordinary Court-day, and not till the next circuit. I am, Sir, your obedt. Servant,

FRASERBURGH, 23d April 1873.

(Glasgow Correspondence.)

LAW REFORM.

W.

GLASGOW, 20th May 1873. WHEN Mr. Moncreiff went to the Bench, leaving gracefully undone things which a good many people thought he ought to have done, Mr. Young, on succeeding him as Lord Advocate, was hailed by the profession, or at least by an important section of it, as the Messiah of Law Reform. His friends had been eager to see him placed in a position where his eminent qualities as a lawyer and debater, combined with his known force of will and tenacity of purpose, would enable him to carry through measures which the alleged mollesse of his predecessor had prevented him from initiating at all, or from passing them into law even when they had been actually introduced into Parliament. As President of the Law Amendment Society, the new Lord Advocate, who came into office in 1869, gave promise too, in several elegant if somewhat guarded addresses, of many fair projects for the improvement of our judicial institutions, and no little hope of the not very distant approach of a legal millennium; mais en dépit de tout cela, we have no legal reform yet! It does not, however, by any means follow that Mr. Young is personally responsible for this barren result, so far as the amendment of the law is concerned, of four years' tenure of office. His splendid fight upon the Education question should cover a great many more sins than any one has yet accused Mr. Young of having committed, and he has undoubtedly been prevented from making the progress which he would otherwise have made with Scotch measures by the almost entire monopoly of Government days during the last two Sessions by Mr. Gladstone