away this difficulty, and do for the resident magistrates and those who practise in the Superior Courts what Mr. Humphreys has so well done for the ordinary justices and their Courts of Petty Sessions.

COURT PAPERS.

COURT OF BANKRUPTCY.

ADJUDICATIONS IN BANKRUPTCY.

[The dates of Adjudications are first given, the Sittings follow in italics.]

DUBLIN.

Norris, Peter, of Liswatty, near Cloyfin, Coleraine, in the March 11; Tuesday, county of Londondery, farmer.

April 1, and Friday, April 18. Daniel MacLaughlin and
William Jasper Brett, solrs.

Murphy, Owen, of Trinity-street, in the town of Wexford, poultry salesman and licensed vintner. March5; Friday, March 28, and Tuesday, April 15. O'Keeffe & Lynch, solrs.

Ross, Patrick J., of Glencairn, Dalkey, in the county of Dublin, gentleman. February 20; Tuesday, March 25, and Tuesday, April 15. John L. Scallan & Co., solrs.

BELFAST.

Aitken, James Arthur, of 3 College-gardens, Belfast, in the county of Antrim, lately carrying on business under the style of the White House Spinning Company," as a flax spinner. March 10; Monday, April 14, and Monday, April 21. L'Estrange & Brett, solrs.

CORK.

O'Brien, Patrick, of 13 Lavitt's-lane, in the city of Cork, cattle
dealer. March 5; Thursday, March 27, and Friday,
April 11.
William Morrogh, solr.

FRIGHTENED TO DEATH BY ELEPHANTS.-At the Dartford County Court on the 14th iust., Messrs. Winter and Co., coal merchants, of Swanscombe, sued Mr. Edwards, a menagerie proprietor, for the sum of £50, the value of a horse alleged to have died from fright at the sight of the defendant's elephants. It appeared that the horse, whilst being driven along the main road, saw the defendant's elephants drawing some caravans. horse gave a jump in the air and then dropped down dead. The jury gave a verdict for £25, and judgment was entered for this amount.

BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS.

BIRTHS.

The

BATTERSBY-March 12, at Upper Mount-street, the wife of T. S. F. Battersby, barrister-at-law, of a daughter.

FITZGERALD-March 14, the wife of William Fitzgerald, solicitor, Mallow, of a son.

MOORE March 20, at Lower Leeson-street, the wife of W. Moore, barrister-at-law, of a daughter.

THORNTON-March 17, at John's Hill, Waterford, the wife of Ernest J. Thornton, solicitor, of a son.

TISDALL-March 19, at Belvidere-place, Dublin, the wife of George ■A. Tisdall, barrister-at-law, of a daughter.

MARRIAGES.

CUNNINGHAM and NOLAN-February 28, at St George's Church, Bloomsbury, London, by the Rev. H. S. Stork, Hastings Cunningham, Esq, of Melbourne, Australia, to Frances Mary, daughter of J. F. Nolan, Esq., late County Court Judge, Victoria, Australia.

DEATHS. HUGGARD-March 19, at Lismore House, Tralee, of typhoid fever, Richard Huggard, Esq., LL.D., aged 34, eldest son of Stephen Huggard, Esq., Clerk of the Crown and Peace for the County of Kerry.

LED WICH-March 16, William Ledwich, Esq., of Kilrathmurry, Moyvalley, and Salem-place, Dublin, at his former residence, to the great grief of his family, aged 76 years.

LEFROY-March 19, at Carrigglas Manor, Longford, George, youngest son of the late Lord Chief Justice Lefroy.

• Shares not fully paid up are given in Italics. Bank Rate-Of Discount-3 per cent.

Of Deposit-1 per cent. Name Days-March 27th, and April 15th, 1890. Account Days-March 28th, and April 16th, 1890. Busin. 8 commences at 1 30 p.m.

1181

1 x d

be submitted to the County Court Judge for approval; he shall then sign it and lodge it with the Clerk of the Peace, directing who is to have the carriage of the case (r. 5). At this point the County Court has fulfilled its part, and the Supreme Court Rules of 28th January, 1890, take the matter up,

There are no rules or forms under the powers given by the Settled Land Act included, presumably because they are but seldom required and are sufficiently accessible elsewhere. Nor are there any under the Admiralty or Bankruptcy jurisdiction, nor the Employers' Liability Act. The forms are but little altered; old form 45 of bond on appeal by lodgment with sheriff is omitted. New form 92, copied from old form 90, is wrong; either the title is wrong, "costs" being put for "transfer," or else the operative portion has been left out in error. Probably the former is the right conjecture. As it stands it purports to be an order for costs, and it really never mentions costs at all. Old form 18 is amended by the addition of a certificate of rent due (new form 19). The error in form 71 has already been pointed out. In each form the names of the County and Division are repeated in the heading after the name of the defendant. The Clerk of the Crown and Peace is given his full title at foot. The words "Record No. are added to the forms of decree, but not to those of the earlier proceedings in the suit.

This publication forcibly reminds the thoughtful reader of the great change which has rapidly come over the County Courts. In 1846 they were but Courts for the recovery of small debts and demands with a £20 limit (9 & 10 Vic., c. 95). They have now deservedly acquired a prominence in the administration of justice in the country. Their establishment has been the most successful legal reform of the present century, a success which is amply testified by the extent of their business. By their means, despite the old dictum, people can now obtain cheap law-and moreover, rapid law which is also good law. The cheapness and facility of their proceedings has had a beneficial effect in removing many abuses in the former practice in the Superior Courts. Their jurisdiction has now increased, not only in value but in juridical importance, till-with their equity jurisdiction, and with their special jurisdiction under special Acts, such as the Friendly Society Acts, Local Bankruptcy Acts, Employers' Liability Acts, &c.-it rivals that of the High Court, and indeed threatens, at no very distant date, to extinguish the Superior Courts altogether, save as Courts of Appeal with but little employment. Any action can now, on consent of the parties, be tried in the County Court. Considering the multifarious nature of his duties, a County Court Judge, to be thoroughly efficient, is presumed to have an intimate acquaintance with law in all its branches-Common Law, Equity Law, Bankrupt and Insolvent Law, Land Law, Criminal and Quarter Sessions Law. It is, moreover, of paramount importance, in justice to suitors, that the law and practice of the Courts should be uniform and universal in their application, that they should not be one thing in one county, another thing in another county, and something

quite different from either in the Court of Appeal. It is to be hoped that these new Orders will tend to bring about this desirable result, and that, pending the publication of a proper book on the practice in the County Courts, the present series of articles may also be found useful. In conclusion, we would observe that the rules of the High Court require to be constantly borne in mind, as in any case not provided for by the County Court Rules, the practice of the Superior Courts may be adopted and applied, at the discretion of the County Court Judge, and, moreover, many rules of the High Court are applied to all Courts.

THE LATE BARON DOWSE.

There

The announcement of the sudden death of Baron Dowse will recall to a good many persons recollections of the somewhat unique position which he held for a considerable time in the House of Commons. At first Mr. Richard Dowse, as he was then, made but little impression upon that singular and difficult assemblage. His manner and style seemed at first somewhat rough, and his genuine powers did not at first display themselves efficiently. Surely, but not slowly, he won his way to a position of very considerable influence. was an extremely strong element of common sense and natural acuteness, combined with very considerable kuowledge-for while his strength lasted he was an indefatigable reader-and as be scarcely ever made a speech which did not greatly amuse, even if it did not, as it usually did, instruct his hearers, the House of Commons soon recognised the fact that it had in him a sterling debater of a high class, and few men were more generally regretted when they left the House. Perhaps his first great success was won by the speech iu which he seriously worsted Mr. Berual Osborne, who up to that time had been regarded as standing in the first position as a witty debater. The House was fairly convulsed with laughter when he told them how Mr. Bernal Osborne, after being rejected for Dorset, "and fiuding no rest for the sole of his foot, like the dove whom he in no other respect resembled, flew across the water and became a member for an Irish borough," Few who had the good fortune to be present on the occasion when Baron Dowse, who was then AttorneyGeneral for Ireland, took part in the debate on Mr. Jacob Bright's Women's Disibility Removal Bill, will ever forget the effect which his speech produced. Lord Coleridge, who was then Attorney-General for England, had pressed the argument that if women were fit to be queens, they certainly were fit to have the suffrage, and had alluded in the course of his speech to the reign of Queen Anne. "I have yet to learn," said Baron Dowse, "that Joseph Addison was a great writer because Queen Anne was a woman, or that the Augustan age, which, by-the-bye, took its name from Augustus and not Augusta, would not have been as distinguished if a woman had not been on the throne. If Queen Anne herself could only be present at this debate with all the knowledge she has acquired in the meantime, I have no doubt she would vote against the bill." "Solvuntur risu tabulæ." The House was for the time too much amused to look at the question.

Another occasion in which the ready wit of Baron Dowse was admirably displayed was in the debate on the second reading of the Ballot Bill. It had been repeatedly urged that, as the voter was a trustee for those who bad not the vote, he ought not to be allowed to exercise his duty secretly, but that the full light of publicity ought to be brought to bear upon him. This argument (said Baron Dowse) used to weigh with me until I happened to be present at a fiercely contested election in the South of Ireland. "On that occasion," said Baron Dowse, "I saw a trustee walking to the poll between a file of soldiers and police, with a large mob of cestui que trusts ready to break his head. Here, I said, is a man charged with the responsibility of a

solemn duty, and he requires to be guarded by a band of soldiers from the cestui que trusts, who are seeking by threats and intimidation to prevent him from voting at all."

A chief characteristic of Baron Dowse's style of speak. ing was the extraordinary suddenness and spontaneity with which his bons mots were delivered. He would, in the middle of a solid and powerful argument, rapidly and unexpectedly introduce a witty and humorous passage. It was this combination of weight of argument with ready wit that enabled him so completely to gain and retain the ear of the House as he did.-Law Journal.

CORONERS' INQUESTS.

At Chester Assizes on the 19th inst., in charging the grand jury, Mr. Justice Wills referred to the charge against the two boys Davies of murdering their father at Crewe. These A sizes, he was afraid, would long be remembered there and elsewhere for certainly one of the most lamentable and one of the most extraordinary cases of murder that ever he recalled to have had to deal with professionally, or to have read of in his experience. It appeared to be absolutely certain that the grand jury would feel it to be their duty to return a true bill in the case; as it was in evidence before him, upon the depositions, that each of the prisoners had made a statement, which, if true, and whether true or not, was most cogent evidence against himself. As each of the prisoners had made a statement inculpating himself directly, and charging himself directly with having an active share in the concoction and completion of the murder, he thought perhaps the less he said about it on the present occasion the better, because it was better that he should reserve the remarks he might have to make until all the evidence had been heard in Court in the usual way. The case was lamentable in another respect, which he regretted to have to say a word about. He regretted very much to find that in a case which one would have thought was free from doubt, as far as the matter that he was now going to mention was concerned, there was Do return of the coroner's inquisition, presenting the fact that the persons now under charge should be charged with murder. It did seem, when one came to read the depositions which had been taken before the magistrates-and one could not but suppose that exactly the same materials ought to have been available, and he should think were available, before the coroner-that one could not help feeling that there must have been some lamentable misconception of the scope of such an inquiry and of the duties of those who bad to conduct it. That alone could explain such a miscarriage, because the office of coroner was an important one, and his function was an important one. The coroner, also, had one advantage from a certain point of view-namely, that being fettered by no precise rules of evidence, and bound to collect as far as he could all information and knowledge of disasters from neighbours and others who could throw any light upon the cause of death, where death had taken place under suspicious circumstances-be could oftentimes collect evidence, facts, and statements which, whether or not they might ultimately be capable of being turned into evidence against the parties who were to be put upon their trial, were often very valuable as supplying material for investigation by the police, and as affording clues which might lead to successful inquiry. If the corouer rejected evidence which lay before him, on the supposition that he was in the position of a Judge who had to try the prisoner, and that the same wide rules of exclusion of evidence which might act against a particular individual in the dock he also could exclude upon legal grounds, be would throw away a good deal of the remaining usefulness of that institution. The coroner's inquisition could not be too thoroughly understood. It amounted to nothing more than the finding of a true bill by a graud jury. It put individuals who ought to answer in suspicious circumstances for what they had done, or were supposed to have done, upon their trial, and led to

proper investigation, preventing the hushing up of matters of this kind. But if the coroner was to reject evidence in the way that he did as a Judge, because certain persons who might be inculpated by tha evidence were not present, or had not the opportunity of contradicting it, why, as he had said before, a great part of his functions would be lost, and the law made of no effect in the case of a person who might ultimately be the subject of an indictment or of an adverse finding by the coroner. The law made no provision for his being represented or for his being present, and gave him no right in that matter. It very often happened that out of a sense of justice, aud in order that full scope might be given to the inquiry, a coroner might accept the evidence of a particular individual or class of individuals who were likely to be affected; but it was only because he chose to accept their assistance that they might be heard. They had no locus stundi, and there was no duty on the part of the police to b ing inculpated persons who were in charge, and who ought to be in safe custody, to any publichouse, a thoroughly improper place for such a purpose-and for the purpose of safe custody, or to any place of that sort in which an inquest might be held. There was no obligation on the part of the police to bring people who must be the subject of such custody there if they were wanted for the purpose of giving evidence. The coroner was in this dilemma. By law he had ample means of compelling their attendance, in which case, if he wa ted it for the purpose of taking their evidence, he must use those powers. If he had not, he had no right to expect their attendance. It very often happened-be trusted it was not so in this case-that there was a morbid curiosity on the part of everybody connected with an inquest to see somebody who might possibly become a notorious criminal. course that kind of desire was not to be gratified, aud the police in this case, as he understood it-because he had felt it to be his duty to make inquiry through the officers of the Court as to why there was no coroner's deposition in the case-the police, in his opinion, in declining to produce these two young men at a place which was not fit for their custody, acted very properly and perfectly right, and he trusted in future there might be no such miscarriage as had taken place in the present instance to comment upon. There was another reason, and good reason, why he (the Judge), who had to try this painful case, had reason to complain of such a course being taken. There being no verdict against anybody returned by the coroner's jurv, no deposition taken by the coroner al been returned to that Court. He had not the slightest doubt that before this case was done witnesses would be asked what they had said before the coroner, as well as before the magistrate. It was a question which it was impossible to escape. In inquiries of this kind the law was not, but in bis judgment it ought to be, that in any matter in which there had been an inquest in the case of death, which led to an indictment being tried, all the depositions ought to be returned for the use of the Court. One consequence of the miscarriage in this case was that very possibly before the case was over, as very often happened, there might arise some unseemly contest as to what bad taken place before the coroner, which would have been set at rest at once and for ever-in fact, it never could have arisen at all-if the depositions had been returned to the Court that bad to try the case. The grand jury subsequently returned true bills against Richard and George Davies,

PRINCIPLES OF PUNISHMENT.

Of

That the world is daily growing more merciful is a fact which it is impossible to doubt, when protests against the length of sentences are constantly emanating from the Judicial Bench itself. There was a time wheu Judges were popularly supposed to enjoy administering Rhadamanthine justice to criminals; aud in some quarters a "good hanging Judge " is still spoken of with respect. If, however, our justiciars ever really took pleasure in passing severe sentences, that era has long