ARREST AND DETENTION OF BANK-
RUPTS.

THE facts of the recent case of Myers v. Veitch, 20 L. T. Rep. N. S. 848, Q. B., upon which we founded our remarks last week, a correspondent informs us, were somewhat inaccurately stated. The plaintiff, it seems, was not a debtor who had executed a composition-deed, but a bankrupt who had surrendered to the adjudication, and was under summons to appear on his last examination. He had had granted to him protection until that period in the usual way, and at the time of his arrest produced it to the sheriff's officer, but did not serve a copy thereof upon that officer, as required by the 113th section of the Bankrupt Law Consolidation Act 1849. He was forthwith, and before he had the opportunity of obtaining a copy of the protection, lodged in Walton gaol. He thereupon obtained a copy of his protection, and served it upon the gaoler, but the latter refused to release him, and he remained in prison for several days. Upon being discharged he brought an action against the gaoler for wrongful detention, and sought, under sect. 113, to enforce the penalty of 57. per day for each day he was detained. The court held that the penalty was enforceable against the sheriff's officer only, and that on the bankrupt being lodged in gaol there was no penalty enforceable against the gaoler. Our correspondent remarks that the effect of this restricted construction of the section will entail the necessity of every bankrupt being provided with a copy of his protection other than the one he usually holds, and further, he adds that there is no bankrupt at present passing through the courts who may not, providing, of course, that there is an execution issued against him, be arrested and lodged in gaol, for in no case do they provide themselves with a second copy of their protection, and there appears to be no obligation upon the sheriff's officer to wait till they can obtain one. We agree with our correspondent that the Judges appear to have taken a somewhat technical view of the section. The object of the penalty was to make the protection inviolable and ensure a bankrupt's liberty from being interfered with on his transit through the court. To limit the liability to a penalty to the sheriff's officer is to neutralise to a great extent the object of the provision, as any unfortunate bankrupt without a duplicate protection might be arrested and taken at once to prison, and kept there with impunity.

A STRANGE SENTENCE.

We have had too much experience of the injustice with which critics who were not present at the trial find fault with the sentences of the Judges, not to feel some hesitation at noting the strange termination of a very strange case that came before Baron CLEASBY.

THE MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY
BILL.

THE House of Lords, by reading the Married
Women's Property Bill a second time, has
admitted that in the interest of the female
portion of the community very considerable
changes in the law ought to be made. To this
extent the sentiment of both Houses and of the
general public is concurrent. That the existing
law is accessory to many cases of hardship and
cruelty towards wives, is recognised on all
hands. The difficulty is in fixing the precise
mode and degree in which the law should be
altered, and on this very conflicting opinions
may with much show of argument be enter-
tained. As the law of property between hus-
band and wife will not be interfered with during
the present session of Parliament, but will with-
out doubt receive very important modifications at
an early period, it is a matter of some moment
that the interval should not be allowed to pass
over without much discussion of the best pos-
sibie settlement of this most complex and em-
barrassing question.

We have on several occasions expressed an
opinion that the changes proposed by Mr.
RUSSELL GURNEY'S Bill are of far too sweeping
a character. The principle of that Bill is-1st,
that in regard to property accrued or accruing
to a woman before or after marriage, she should,
notwithstanding her coverture, have all the
rights and privileges of a feme sole; and, 2nd,
that notwithstanding coverture, she shall be at
liberty to contract, and to sue and be sued, as if
she were a feme sole. The essence of the Bill
may be summed up in the words "coverture
shall not be any disability." We take leave to
dispute the expediency of setting up any such
general proposition as the basis of legislation.
We cannot divest ourselves of the old-fashioned
notion-a notion confirmed by universal experi-
ence-that the husband is the natural and
proper head of the family, and that in some
degree the wife is, and ought to be, subordinate.
The real question is as to the extent to which
the law should directly or indirectly lend its aid
towards insuring due obedience on the part of
the wife.

At the present time the law assists the hus

band, first, by giving him the legal custody of his wife; secondly, by giving him her property, its nature; and, thirdly, by disabling the wife or some estate or interest therein according to from entering into any contract or suing or being sued. We do not understond that there is any attempt to alter the law on the first head, yet it seems to us not a trifling anomaly, that, reversing all the traditions of our jurisprudence, property is to be regarded before personal liberty. In regard to the second head, we freely admit that some alteration is required. We believe neither in the expediency of vesting the entire personal A gamekeeper had chased two poachers; one estate of the wife in the husband as at present, of them turned, deliberately took aim at him nor in that of permitting the wife alone to have with a gun he carried, fired, and when his victim the use and control, the jus disponendi as well as fell, went up to him and discharged the other the jus fruendi, as proposed by the Bill. It is at barrel into his head, killing him instantly. least worthy of consideration whether the proThis was a murder most hideous in its cha-perty of the wife (other than personal chatracter, but it was converted into manslaughter by the fact that the keeper had pursued the poacher beyond the boundary of the land, and, therefore, was himself then doing an unlawful act in attempting to capture the poacher. Of course, the real character of the crime is in no way changed by this purely legal quibble. The murderer was ignorant of the nice legal distinction and it was only by accident that he killed his victim on one side of a hedge instead of on the other side of it. Nevertheless the facts plainly reduced the crime in contemplation of law from murder to manslaughter, and the jury, directed by the Judge, found accordingly. But it was manslaughter in the highest degree, and to all seeming deserved the greatest punishment that can be awarded to that offence. Morally and socially it was murder. Manslaughter is a crime that we are repeatedly told by Judges varies in degree from murder to misadventure, and requires a wide scale of punishment. If ever there was a case that called for the infliction of the highest penalty, this would appear to have been one; and so it seems thought the audience, for when they were looking for a sentence of penal servitude for life, they were astounded to hear this atrocious criminal condemned to no more than penal servitude for seven years. The public has since shared their astonishment, and the Profession is as much puzzled as the public and the press to understand the meaning of it.

tels and personal earnings of the wife, as to
which there should be special provisions), should
not be vested in the wife as a feme sole at law
and in equity, but without the power to alienate
the same or anticipate the income therefrom
during the coverture without the consent of the
husband. In aliening any property except
chattels personal capable of delivery, the free-
dom of the wife from constraint might be
evidenced in the manner required by the Act for
the Abolition of Fines and Recoveries. The
wife without the consent of the husband might
be permitted to make any lease of her lands not
required by law to be in writing. As incidental
to the ownership of the wife, it would be neces-
sary to confer on her the power of contract-
ing, and of suing or being sued in relation to her
property, or the rents or management thereof.

One of the main designs of the alteration of
the law is to prevent a good-for-nothing or dis-
solute husband from breaking up the home by
selling household effects belonging to the wife;
something might be done towards preventing
this by enacting that personal chattels belonging
to the wife should during the coverture be vested
in the husband and wife jointly, and that
any sale or disposition by either without the
consent of the other (not being a sale in market
overt to a purchaser without notice), should be
ineffectual, and that on any sale by the husband
without the consent of the wife, she should be

empowered as a feme sole to sue him and recover damages for the unlawful conversion of the property.

Another main design of the Bill was to preserve to married women their personal earnings, although not deserted by their husbands, so as to come within the 20 & 21 Vict. c. 85, s. 21. Such earnings should, as it seems to us, belong to the wife by the highest of all titles, and although we cannot but feel that there are the gravest objections to conferring upon married women an unlimited power of entering into contracts, the balance of advantage appears to be in favour of enabling a married woman who has actually fulfilled her part of a contract, to sue for, or give a good receipt for, the consideration, and to hold the same as a feme sole. Under such circumstances we do not see why she might not, although not deserted by her husband, have her earnings protected in the same manner as if she had obtained a protection order under the section to which we have before alluded.

In regard to the third head :-The proposed abolition of the disability of married women in regard to contracts and actions we do not view with much favour. To suppose that the sanctity of the conjugal relationship, the peace of families, or the welfare of the state will be promoted by enabling a wife, without the consent of her husband, and in the face of his most strenuous opposition, to fetter herself with contracts, at variance possibly with her duties as a wife and mother, and by which her property may be dissipated, appears to us wholly preposterous. The same reasons which lead us to contend that a married woman ought not to have an uncontrolled power of disposition over her property during the coverture, apply, if pos sible, with greater weight to deprive her of the power of contracting, of suing and being sued. No legislation can prevent the husband from being practically liable for the results of his wife's contracts, if she be permitted to contract. If she cannot fulfil her engagements, in the vast majority of instances, the husband, if able, will have no option but to fulfil them himself, or satisfy the damages arising from their non

fulfilment.

The advocates of the Bill, as it stands, say

that by the machinery of settlements a wife in the upper classes of society has even now, under leges of a feme sole. the limitations to her separate use, the privi This is not a fair way of stating the case. Wives are protected, and protected effectually, by means of settlements; but it would be a very extraordinary marriage settlement which should limit the property of a lady where there was any possibility of her having issue, so that she might have as against the issue an uncontrolled power of disposition. No doubt such settlements have been made and will be made again; but they are altogether exceptional, and to base a general legislative enactment upon them would be ridiculous. It appears from the report of the special commission that in Massachusetts the wife has no power without the consent of the husband to dispose by gift inter vivos of real estate or shares in corporations, although it seems she may do so by will. Whether a married woman should be permitted to dispose of her property by will, and thus, if she thinks fit, to defeat her husband and children, may be a question; for our own part, we do not believe it to be expedient that as a rule she should have such a power, though there may be no objection to giving her a testamentary power, of exclusive appointment among her husband and issue. The inexpediency of going beyond the Massachusetts law in regard to her power of disposition inter vivos appears to us free from doubt. It should be remembered that the usages and feelings of Massachusetts much more nearly approximate to those of English society than do those of New York and the other more intensely democratic communities of the Far West, to the law in which, with regard to husband and wife, it is proposed that our own should be made to assimilate. As to the devolution of the wife's per sonalty on her death intestate, we see no ground far altering the present law. An abstract notion of symmetry and equality is obviously insufficient. The point, however, is one of quite minor importance.

As to the wife's debts contracted before marriage, it is clear that if marriage is to any extent to operate as a disability, the husband, and not the creditor, ought to suffer. Where the husband satisfies such debts, there should be no dif

1. Notice of appeal-Mersey Docks Consolidation Act 1858-Damage to ship.-If a party intends to appeal under sect 335 of this Act against a conviction by justices under sect. 95, for injury in

flicted by him on any vessel, it is sufficient if he serve his notice of appeal on one of the several part owners of the injured vessel, and within three days after giving the notice enter into a recognisance to try the appeal: (Reg v. The Recorder of Liverpool, 31 L. J. 122, Q. B.; 4 Law Dig. 307.)

2. Colonial court-Procedure.-The Privy Council is not disposed to interfere with the judgment of a colonial court on a question regarding its forms and practice. But upon a substantial question whether a form of words in a policy amounted to a warranty, the decision of the Colonial Court of Queen's Bench was reversed. The words " now lying in the T. dock, and intended to navigate the St. Lawrence as a freight boat, and to be laid up for the winter," were held not to import a warranty that the steamer should navigate as described, and, being burnt without leaving the dock, the insurers were held liable: (Grant v. Etna Insurance Company, J. C. P. C., July 5, 1862; 1 Mar. Law Cas. 232 (appeal from judgment of Court of Queen's Bench, Lower Canada); 6 L. T. Rep. N. S. 735; 8 Jur. N. S. 705.)

Limitation a rule of practice. The limitation of time for entering appeals from the Admiralty Court is a mere rule of practice, which rule bends to circumstances. where cross-actions The limit so prescribed is fifteen days, but were brought, and one party was not informed until after the fifteen days that the other party had appealed, the Privy Council gave leave to lodge a cross appeal: (The 1 Mar. Law Cas. 237). Florence Nightingale, J. C. P. C. July 16, 1862,

To sum up, the deficiencies of the existing system may be shortly stated as follows:

First, in all cases the scale of costs allowed by the public in criminal cases is too low. The result is that respectable attorneys dislike criminal business, and have no motive when they do undertake it to do it properly. They often omit steps, such as taking counsel's opinion on evidence, having consultations, &c., which are really necessary or desirable, for fear of not getting their costs allowed on taxation. This, however, is a minor point, and there is danger of exaggerating its importance. The second evil is that in routine cases, which for any reason the police do not take up, the private prosecutor is liable to be saddled with costs if he prosecutes efficiently, and the public is exposed to the risk that crimes may go unpunished if he

does not.

The remedy for these evils is as simple and straightforward as possible. It is merely to make it part of the duty of the committing magistrate, unless he sees reason to the contrary, to nominate an attorney to conduct the prosecution, unless the prosecutor prefers to do so himself, and to pay | such a scale of costs as shall make respectable attorneys willing to undertake criminal business. This simple alteration, which would not increase the expense of criminal proceedings except to the extent to which it clearly ought to be increased, that is to say, to the point necessary to secure reasonable efficiency, would be all that is required to provide a perfectly satisfactory system for the prosecution of common routine offences.

1. The Lord Chancellor shall appoint an officer who shall be called the Public Prosecutor, and who shall be a barrister or an attorney-at-law of ten years' standing, and shall receive a salary of £ per annum.

2. It shall be the duty of the Public Prosecutor to receive and to consider applications made to him for the prosecution of offences at the public expense exclusively.

3. When the public prosecutor shall think it desirable to institute and carry on any such prosecution it shall be lawful for him in his discretion to take all such steps for that purpose as may at present be taken by an attorney retained to prosecute any person on any criminal charge, and in particular to employ local agents to act for him, and all costs and expenses incurred by him for any such purposes shall be paid by the Commissioners of the Treasury.

4. When any judge of any of the Superior Courts of law or equity, or any judge having jurisdiction in bankruptcy, shall by reason of matter brought before him in the course of any judicial proceeding see reason to believe that any crime has been committed, he shall report the facts of the case to the Public Prosecutor and the Public Prosecuter shall thereupon take such proceedings as he shall think proper.

Other sections for providing a proper office for enabling the Lord Chancellor to ask for returns, reasons, &c., and to dismiss in case of misconduct, would be desirable; but this would be the substance of the measure. If it were adopted it would simply fill up a recognised gap in our judicial system at a very moderate expense and without involving the smallest change in our general system of criminal procedure. The public prosecutor would employ counsel, take their advice upon evidence, consult with them, instruct them to draw indictments, get up the evidence, employ country agents, and, in a word, do the ordinary business of a prosecuting attorney in cases which he regarded as being important enough to demand his interference. The right of the public to prosecute would remain as it is, and if any one considered himself aggrieved by the refusal of the Public Prosecutor to take up his case he would still have it in his power to act for himself as he might think fit. This would avoid, amongst other things, all the difficulties which have been felt, as often as the subject has been mooted, in adapting to our own use parts of the institutions of other countries, by which the whole administration of criminal justice is conceived in a spirit totally different from the one which distinguishes our country.

perty. This can only be done by abolishing all artificial laws belonging to, or arising from, the feudal system, and by considering all property as the same, except so far as its physical nature causes a diversity in the rules of law which apply to it, or special positive laws regulate certain particular kinds of property for economical and political purposes.

The first point is, that all dealings with immovable property should be direct and simple, and as little technical as possible.

The legal estate should be entirely assimilated to the equitable estate. Whatever modification of the dominium or right may be made by means of uses and trusts creating equitable estates, should be made directly and simply, without resorting to uses and trusts, but by conveyance or contract, without the intervention of trustees. By this means the legal estate can be moulded and made to fulfil every purpose; and conveyances to trustees will be resorted to only where they are necessary to take charge of the property for the purposes intended, such, for instance, as trusts for charitable purposes, or for accumula tion, &c.

By this amendment of the law, powers would be created without any equitable estate. And at law, as well as is now done in equity, a deferred or future interest could be created in the first instance, so as to limit a remainder, after a fee simple determinable on the happening of a given event; and the artificial and circuitous practice of creating, springing, or shifting uses, would be superseded by simple grant of the ownership of the estate, or by contracts, expressing plainly and in simple language the disposition intended to be made according to the intentions of the parties. The object in view is that, whatever can now be done by means of uses and trusts, may be done, as in the civil law, by contract unilateral or otherwise, without resorting to any indirect circuitous artificial method. On the same principle, limitations to trustees to bar dower should be abolished, and a simple clause inserted in deeds, declaring that no dower shall be claimed, and such a declaration, clearly expressing the intention, should be sufficient to bar dower.

With regard to crimes in which costs are not at
present allowed an important distinction must be
observed. It would be altogether monstrous to
institute an office which would enable every person
to set the criminal law in motion at his own dis-
cretion and at the public expense. Those who
doubt this can hardly be aware of the nature of
the engine which would thus be placed under the
control of every vindictive or wrong-headed man
in the country. Look at the law of conspiracy as
illustrated by the case of conspiracies in restraint
of trade; look at the law of libel, and especially
that branch of it which would expose many writers
whose bona fides is undeniable to prosecutions for
blasphemous or seditious libel; look at indict-
ments for assault, nuisance, and other matters,
which are essentially civil actions though criminal
in form; look at prosecutions representing strong
personal or party feeling, like the prosecu-
tion of Governor Eyre for murder, or that of Mr.
Zuluetta for slave-trading. All these cases, and
many more which might be added, are so many
proofs of the truth that if private individuals are
to be allowed to prosecute on their discretion for
every sort of crime which is, or is believed by them
to be, committed-a right which we regard as one
of the very highest value, and as one of the minor
causes of our English respect for the law-it is
desirable that they should not be allowed to draw
apon the public purse for the gratification of
their wishes except under very effective restrictions.
It would, however, be quite as easy to refer to
cases which show with equal clearness the im-
portance of enabling private persons to prosecute
at the public expense in many cases in which they
now have to do it, if at all, at their own. The
great commercial frauds and scandals of various
kinds which have been so rife of late, and many
of which, though brought to light by proceedings
in courts of law and equity, have escaped all in-
vestigation even, will readily occur to everyone.
In some instances no prosecutions have been in- depends to a considerable extent the solution of only a legal power over it.

stituted, although the facts were patent and notorious, and although attention was pointedly called by the public press to the fact that crimes had been committed, because private interests were rather opposed than favourable to a prosecution. In other instances prosecutions have been instituted under the influence of private feelings which, though natural and even laudable in their way, and useful in their results, were not exactly those under which one would wish to see criminal prosecutions conducted, or which would guarantee their fair and temperate management. Everyone must have felt that in these cases it would have been a great gain if the question whether a prosecution should be conducted at the public expense had been fairly considered by a disinterested representative of the public.

It is sometimes supposed that questions of great delicacy and difficulty might arise as to the appointment and the duties of such an officer. In fact, nothing could be simpler or more easy. As we have frequently pointed out, he would have to do nothing whatever except what on a more limited scale is done already in certain cases by the Solicitor to the Treasury. No change in the law would be required; no great expense would be necessary. An Act of Parliament in two or three sections, and somewhat to the following effect, would be all that would be necessary:Whereas, crimes often escape punishment for want of due prosecution, and whereas it is expedient that in certain cases greater facilities than at present exist should be provided for the prosecution of crimes, be it enacted as follows:

REFORM OF THE LAW OF REAL
PROPERTY.

In all cases in which trustees are necessary for the administration and management of land, the law should invest them with all the powers necessary for the fulfilment of their trust; but no estate nor interest in the property should be vested in them. This part of the subject is easily explained by reference to the civil law. The leading principle is to be found in the Institutes, lib. ii. tit. 1, s. 7. Justinian there (in accordance with the ancient jurists) holds things consecrated, religious, or sacred to be res nullius. They are appropriated to a purpose, but they are not the property of any one. On the same principle, trust property, strictly so called, is appropriated to a purpose. And to hold that the trustee has any estate or interest in it is a mere fiction. This doctrine is further illustrated by the title of the Institutes Quibus alienare licet vel non licet, which shows that property may be in some cases alienated by one who has no vested interest of proprietorship, or, as we should say, no estate in The second is: Why has not a complete regis-it, because the law itself gives him the power of doing so. Thus the hypothecarius can alienate tration of title to real property been established the hypothecated property of his debtor, though in England as it has been in almost every other it is by contract merely a security for the debt. country? On the answer to the first of these questions the trust property is not his property. He has So if the trust requires the trustee to alienate,

A PAPER has been read by Sir GEORGE BOWYER,
Bart., D.C.L., before the Juridical Society, on
this subject, from which we extract the following.

He says:

Two questions have often been put by and to law reformers.

The first is: Why an estate in fee simple cannot be sold and transferred as easily and simply as a bale of goods?

the great problem of the amalgamation of law and
equity. And it is important to observe, that the
separation between law and equity is one of the
principal difficulties in the way of a digest or a
code of the laws relating to real property.

I believe it can be shown that one thing is the
root of the whole of this subject. I mean that
peculiarity in the law of England wherein it
differs from the law of all other European states,
both ancient and modern-the permanent or in-
definitely protracted separation of the legal from
the equitable estate in land. Let us examine the
subject historically and critically, with a view to
effects of this remarkable institution of our muni-
form an accurate notion of the legal nature and
cipal law.

This the learned baronet proceeds to do at length, and continues:

The analysis stated above, of the principles of the civil law, gives us a clue to extricate ourselves from the difficulty, and to remedy an evil which the increasing charges on land are making more and more intolerable, to the great injury of the wealth of the nation.

The civil law allows no distinction between the legal estate and the equitable estate, and it allows immovable and movable property to be dealt with freely by contract alike. It only admits the distinction between movables and immovables. It allows every sort of property to be dealt with in the most direct and simple way, according to the interests and the wants of mankind.

The question arises how we can attain this much-desired simplicity of the law of real pro

As for trustees

for charities, they ought to be deemed simply public officers, administering property for the objects of the charity. The trustees have simply certain duties to perform. The law should give have no rights of dominium, either legal or equito them the necessary powers. But they should table. In common sense, and according to the accurate principles of jurisprudence, they should have simply a power and authority conferred by the law. The law of England (Co. Litt. 12, 18, b.) allows the freehold to be in abeyance only on the death of a parson. But the whole doctrine about freehold is obsolete and useless. There is no freehold in consols. Both are simply property, to difference between the freehold in land and the be used for the purposes of society and of life under the regulation of the law.

The amendments of the law above indicated would greatly simplify the law of real property. The amendment would be entirely prospective, so as not to interfere with any existing deeds and arrangements.

Its effect would be to render unnecessary conveyances to trustees executed for the purpose of dealing with real property in a way which the law does not allow to freehold to be dealt with. Thus the freehold would be assimilated to the equitable estate, and rendered equally plastic and capable of being adapted to all the purposes of private property.

At a second reading Sir George further considered the subject. He says:

The conclusion arrived at in the former pape

was-that whatever practical uses and advantages belong to the equitable estate ought to be extended to the legal estate, that is to say, that the legal estate should be rendered by law capable of being dealt with in the same way as the equitable

estate, and moulded for the same purposes.

If this were effected by legislation, uses and trusts would become unnecessary in this country, as they are in other civilised countries of Europe.

But this is not sufficient. For no reform of the law of real property can be effectual unless it thoroughly carries into operation the principles of the Statute of Uses, which, as we have seen, are analogous to those of the civil law, by putting an

end for the future to the distinction between the legal and the equitable estate in law.

missioner of Works to prepare a set of plans adapted to the lesser Embankment area, consist ing of six acres; and likewise plans on a reduced scale suited to the seven and a half acres of the Carey-street site.

11. Thus the committee had before them, on the north of the Strand, seven and a half acres, forming the Carey-street site, already purchased and cleared, and from which upwards of 4000 resident occu piers had been removed, and on the south of the Strand, below Howard-street, a site to the extent of six acres, about four and a half acres of which are still covered by houses and buildings.

12. From the fullest consideration of all the cir cumstances of the case, and of the facts stated in

evidence before them, your committee have come to the following conclusions:

The proposed reform would make a very important change in the law of real property. By dealing with real property, not by conveyance, but by contract, the legal estate would always be and remain vested in the real owner of the property Thus the unity of the title would be preserved, for there would be no conveyance to trustees. Even where trustees are useful to see to the management and appropriation of property, they would be in the nature of curators or guardians, having a legal power and authority, but no vested nor contingent interest in the land. The policy effect, if in a will or codicil, as an executory de. and object of the Statute of Uses would be liament in the Act of 1865. fully carried into effect.

This can only be done by preventing for the future limitations to trustees for terms of years in conveyances. We have an example of this in stat. 7 & 8 Vict. c. 76, sect. 8, repealed and reenacted (in substance) by 8 & 9 Vict. c. 106, which provides that no estate in law shall be created by way of contingent remainder, but every estate which before the passing of the Act would have taken effect as a contingent remainder shall take

vise, and if in a deed, as an executory estate of the same nature and having the same properties as an executory devise. To conveyances by will the law (as Burton expresses it, Real Prop. sect. 280,) has indulged the creation of future and contingent estates under the name of executory devises, according to a system analogous in other respects to springing and shifting uses, but with this difference, that the gift by will is allowed to be direct, and independent of the interposition of

And there would be no distinction between legal and equitable estates and legal and equitable rights and interests. Therefore the law of real property would no longer be administered partly by courts of law and partly by courts of equity, for the two jurisdictions would be practically amalgamated, except as regards difference of procedure, a difference which must be dealt with and remedied separately. Moreover the simplification of titles, by the introduction of the great principle of unity of title to facilitate the establishment of a sound system of general registration of titles.

13. They are of opinion that the Carey-street site, upon the whole, affords the best oppor tunity of concentrating the courts and offices in the centre of the great legal district lying between and nearly equi-distant from Lincoln's. inn and the Temple; and that it would be greatly to the public advantage that this site should be adhered to, and the new Law Courts and offices erected thereon, as sanctioned by Par

14. The evidence received by your committee has satisfied them that the convenience of the public cannot be separated in the main from that time which would result from placing the Law of the legal profession, and that the economy of Courts in immediate proximity to the chambers of the practising barristers and solicitors would tend to the direct advantage of the suitors. On the other hand, the placing of the Equity Courts on the Embankment site would, in the judgment of public and the Profession, and materally diminish, if not destroy, the benefit which has accrued from the transfer of the Chancery Courts from Westminster to Lincoln's-inn.

a third person, which the Statute of Uses requires. the dominion or ownership of land, would greatly your committee, be of serious detriment to the And thus the question of scintilla juris may be

avoided.

THE NEW LAW COURTS.

The statute thus rendered unnecessary and abolished the conveyance to trustees to preserve contingent remainders. It also affords an example of that which I contended for in the former paper, THE following is the report of the committee:— namely, rendering the legal estate capable of being dealt with, and moulded to the same purposes as the equitable estate. The abolition of the limitation to trustees to preserve contingent remainders, and the well-known provision in the Act preventing the destruction of contingent remainders existing when the Act came into force, effected a great improvement and simplification of the law, rendering obsolete much of the abstruse law contained in Fearne's celebrated treatise.

The statute also illustrates the proposition that the interposition of trustees in conveyance is useless. It is indeed strange that lawyers did not see that if trustees to preserve were unnecessary in wills and codicils, they were unnecessary in deeds also. The distinction was founded on no principle either of jurisprudence or of common

sense.

The stats. 7 & 8 Vict. c. 76, and 8 & 9 Vict. c. 106, are in truth a very valuable step in law reform; and they sanction the very principles on which I base my propositions for the reform of the law of real property. They show that the legal estate may be made equally plastic and practically adaptable to every purpose as the equitable estate, and that limitations to trustees are useless. These are, indeed, most important propositions, for they involve the whole subject of the reform of the law of real property, either directly or consequentially.

For if the legal estate may be dealt with in the same way and for the same purposes as the equitable estate, there is no reason for the legal separation of the legal estate from the equitable estate. And if the interposition of trustees is not necessary, it follows that limitations to trustees, and the interposition of trustees in conveyances, are unnecessary. And if they be unnecessary, they must be prejudicial, because they complicate the law, and give rise to technical difficulties; and they therefore cause loss of time, and also much expense in dealing with landed property.

*

The most essential reform of the law of real property is to assimilate it to that which governs personalty.

One evil of the legal distinction which makes estates in land less than freehold personalty, is that they devolve on the executor or administrator, while the freehold passes to the heir. Thus we have two entirely different and separate laws of descent or inheritance affecting property of the same nature, that is to say, immovable property; so that even an estate from auter vie will go, on intestacy, to the heir, while an estate for a million of years, or until the day of judgment, will go to the executor or administrator.

This is contrary to the plainest common sense.

It is obvious that all immovable property ought to be subject to the same law of descent or devolution in case of intestacy. If the law of primogeniture be good, it should extend to all immov

able property, and if it be bad, it ought to be abolished altogether; and in either case all

1. Your committee have taken into consideration the matters referred to them, and have examined professional and other witnesses of experience and eminence.

2. They find that in 1842 a Select Committee was appointed to consider the expediency of erecting a building in the neighbourhood of the Inns of Court for the sittings of the Courts of Law and Equity, with a view to the more speedy, convenient, and effectual administration of justice."

3. Inquiries were renewed, by direction of Parliament, from time to time, and a Royal Commission issued in 1859, whose recommendations all tended to that object.

4. In accordance with the report, made in 1860, of the Royal Commission, which included the present Lord Chancellor, Sir J. T. Coleridge, and the late Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, an Act was passed in the year 1865 authorising the purchase of a large area, since cleared, lying between the Strand and Carey-street, and containing 7 acres.

5. By a second Act of the same Session the cost of the site to be thus acquired, and of the buildings to be erected upon it, was provided for partly by 1,000,000l. of stock standing to the credit of the Suitors' Fund in the Court of Chancery, and partly by a redemption annuity, extending over a period not exceeding fifty years, to be levied by fees on suitors.

6. The acquisition of the property and its clearance have occupied a period of nearly four years, and the cost of the purchase and clearance has amounted to a sum exceeding 800,000l.

7. A Royal Commission, dated 29th June 1865, was issued appointing the Lord Chancellor and many of the Judges, and other persons, "to advise and concur with the Treasury as to the plan and arrangements of the intended new courts," and during the period which has been occupied in acquiring and obtaining possession of the site the Commissioners have, from time to time, recorded their opinion as to the courts and offices necessary or desirable to be provided for.

8. Under the Thames Embankment Act, passed in 1862, a space of ground lying between Norfolkstreet, Surrey-street, Arundel-street, and the river was reclaimed and directed to be set apart for the use of the public as ornamental ground.

9. Upon this ground, and the space lying between it and the Strand, a scheme was proposed early in the present session for erecting new courts of law and offices, instead of erecting them on the Carey-street site, acquired under the Act of 1865. This design was subsequently limited to an area comprising the houses and buildings to the south of Howard-street, and about an acre and a quarter of the reclaimed land, and involving for the sake of approaches and air the demolition of part of the houses on the north side of Howardstreet.

15. With regard to facility of access, your com. mittee are impressed with the conviction that for all ordinary purposes connected with the courts no great additional expenditure need be incurred should the Carey-street site be adopted; while they desire to call attention to the fact that the increased accommodation likely to be afforded by the Embankment, the river, and the contemplated railway, must be taken into account as available, in the case of strangers, for the Carey-street site, to nearly the same degree as for that of Howard. street.

16. The Carey-street site admits of a building the same size as that proposed to be placed on the Embankment site, with an area available for improved approaches.

17. The reasons for any improvement in the approaches that may be desirable upon the north of Carey-street would equally apply if the building were erected on the Howard-street site.

18. It is alleged that the shape of the Carey. street site presents certain inconveniences, from the irregular shape of the western boundary; but your committee believe that the site may be made available for the reduced scheme without any additional purchases, by a give-and-take arrange ment with Clement's-inn, and that if any ad ditional purchase of ground were found necessary the cost of such purchase might be met by the sale of a portion of the ground already acquired.

19. Mr. Hardwick and other witnesses have stated their opinion that no difficulty whatever would exist in securing purity of air, adequate ventilation, and sufficiency of light in buildings

erected on either site.

20. The Carey-street site, then, being in the opinion of your committee the most convenient for the accomplishment of the main objects of the proposed concentration, they proceed to consider whether, with relation either to cost or architec tural effect, it would be wise to abandon the present Parliamentary site.

21. Your committee have carefully weighed the conflicting statements laid before them regarding the question of cost.

22. The estimated expense of acquiring the Howard-street site and widening Essex-street, which Mr. Street and Mr. Hunt concur in regard ing as indispensable, would be as large as that already expended on the Carey-street site as it now stands.

23. If the Carey-street site were abandoned a considerable loss must inevitably occur on its re-sale, which Mr. Pownall, Mr. Hardwick, and Mr. Oakley agree in putting as high as 436,000.

24. Mr. Hunt, indeed, says in his evidence that he has been in communication with a gentleman representing, according to his own statements, some very responsible persons who are willing to take the Carey-street site and lay it out for building purposes at an ultimate rent equivalent to 34 per cent. on 780,000l.; but that, although the 10. Mr. Street, whose plans for the building on ultimate rent will be 3 per cent., there must be a the Carey-street' site had been sanctioned by the period of time when all the rent cannot be obroyal commission, was directed by the First Com-tained, and so Mr. Hunt puts it 3 per cent.