the hard things its enemies ignorantly say of it. Think for a moment. What a counsel says in Court, if at all relevant to the inquiry (some authorities carry it even further), is absolutely privileged; so that the subject of a slander so made is entirely without redress. If what I say is not sound, it follows that, according to the rules of our profession, an unscrupulous attorney, making no inquiry, may instruct a counsel to utter an atrocious slander; the counsel so instructed may, without inquiry, atter and enforce it; and the subject of it, however foul the slander, and however absolute his innocence, may stand for the rest of his life, as Thackeray says of Addison, "stainless but for that, but bleeding from that black wound"-a wound which cannot be healed, because he can neither force the man who stabbed him to withdraw the weapou, nor yet to meet the man whom he has stabbed in fair and equal fight. A man, indeed, not dead to honour and good feeling, will withdraw an accusation the moment he discovers he has made it on evidence which he cannot trust, and withdraw it as openly as he made it, tendering such amends as hearty regret can frame for having been misled into it.

This was the common practice when I was young: I do not doubt it is the common practice now; but I have read arguments to show that an advocate may indeed thus act if he thinks fit, but that there is no rule of his profession binding him to do so. I cannot myself conceive a worse enemy to the profession, than he who maintains this; I cannot conceive anything more likely to lead, and which would more justly and surely lead, to the imposition of some legal curb on that free speaking of the advocate, which, when restrained by the ordinary rules of honour and morality, is almost the most precious right which a free people can possess. It is obvious that, outside the court, an advocate (unless he is forced to speak by assaults on his conduct) had far better be silent as to personal attacks which he has made in it. Excuses which may be made for the language of an advocate in the discharge of his duty have no force whatever as to what he may say when he is not performing it. Then be is like any other man, subject to the same rules, liable to the same condemnation if he breaks them. It is no part of his duty out of court to deal in defamation; the public and society justly look on him then just as they look on any other gentleman, and if he is found to bear false witness against his neighbour, upon instructious which he has not verified, and which may possibly have misled him, he must not only submit to the disapprobation of all honourable men, bat to the still heavier reproach that he has done something to let down the character of a great profession and to justify the slanders uttered against it by its enemies, I do not, as I have said, so understand the rules of our profession. I have lived amongst those who did not So understand them. Within my own experience Cresswell, Thesiger, Crowder, Cockburn, Bovill, Karslake, Collier, Holker, Honyman (I will not speak of living men, and I speak only of instances I have known; I doubt not there are hundreds of others), these men have withdrawn from cases sooner than persist in attacks which they found to be groundless made upon instructions which they discovered had deceived them; in some cases had been intended to do 80. Alexander Cockburn once said that a man who behaved otherwise deserved to be branded as a criminal conspirator, and on an occasion which has become historical he qualified the perhaps too loose generality of a dictum of Lord Brougham, by saying that an English advocate should maintain his client's cause " 'per fas but not per nefas; with the sword of the soldier, not the dagger of the assassin." These are the rules which I believe guide the conduct of all honourable men in our profession from the highest to the lowest; these are the principles which no man who respects himself will ever violate in practice; and by which, if his practice were questioned, he would not for a moment hesitate to have it judged. These principles are plain and simple, and ought not to be difficult to follow. Our profession does not stand outside Christian ethics; and the rule, rightly

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and sensibly interpreted, that we should do to other men what we should wish in like case other men should do to us, is as good for us as for the rest of mankind. I am very sure that no man of character will question this, and I am also sure that if ever, in time past, present, or to come, any such man is supposed to have acted otherwise, it can and will be only because the facts relating to his conduct are inaccurately stated, have been imperfectly apprehended, or are altogether misunderstood. But as we value our honour and love our profession let there be no paltering with these principles, and no hesitation in condemning any departure from them.

There is one step further still, which I will illustrate, withholding names, by an instance which I heard myself. In a Divorce Bill, before the creation of the Divorce Court, and heard, therefore, in the House of Lords, there was clear evidence that a woman resembling the incriminated wife had been seen in a compromising position with a young groom in the stableyard of a nobleman's castle. The attorney knew that the wife herself was the woman, and he suggested this to the counsel, but said that there was a maid, whom I will call Rose, upon whom suspicion might plausibly be thrown. Suspicion, happily unsuccessfully, was thrown upon Rose by the counsel, who actually told the story himself; and when somewhat roundly taken to task for it, calmly observed "that he had followed his instructions, but that he always felt it was rather hard upon Rose." I thought then, and think now, that this conduct was infamous, and that, in his case at least, it was true that a man in a wig and gown had done that which if he had done without those appendages, most honourable men would have said with Henry the Fifth

"We would not die in that man's company;"

(I would not sleep under the same roof with him, or go to sea with him in the same boat.)

Now, whatever one may think of the counsel, it is plainly inconceivable that if he had been attorney as well as advocate, and had himself beard the confession of his client, he would have descended to such almost incredible baseness as to put upon another what he knew from his client she had done herself. Let me say that this was an exception, and that I have lived my life amongst men as incapable of it as Bayard, and who would have condemned it as sternly as St. Paul. While, therefore, I am not insensible to the many advantages of the present system, the comfort of which to the advocate I enjoyed for six-and-twenty years, I cannot shut my eyes to the many countervailing benefits to be found in the American practice if and when it is ever introduced into the English courts.

"Here, then, my words have end." Too long, and yet desultory and superficial. Forgive their imperfections, accept them as a poor token of goodwill from an old judge to youthful students, from one at the end of his career to you who are at the beginning of yours, from memory to hope, from winter to the spring which will surely and very soon replace it, from one who has had much more success than he deserves, and who wishes you to succeed at least as well and to deserve it better.

SUBSTITUTING NEW BILL OF COSTS.

Can a solicitor withdraw a bill of costs which he bas delivered, and substitute for it another bill on which he may stand a better chance on taxation? This ques-, tion was considered at some length on the 10th June before Justices Denman and Charles, in the case of Goldring and others v. Hammond's Bradford Brewery Company, and though the question was not decided in that particular case, as an order was arrived at by consent, yet from the authorities cited there can be no doubt that a solicitor cannot deliver a hill of costs, and then, if objections be made to such bill, withdraw the same

and deliver a second bill which may better stand taxation. In such a case the client has a right to have the first bill taxed, and he may ignore the second bill. For this proposition there is a strong current of authority from the time of Lord Langdale down almost to the present time. In 1845 it was decided by Lord Langdale, Master of the Rolls, in the case of Re Carven (8 Beav. 436), that a solicitor having delivered his bill of costs is bound by it, and the taxation must be on that bill, so that he is not entitled as of course to reduce his demand, or to reserve the power of delivering a bill containing other charges. This case was followed in 1865 by Sir John Romilly, the Master of the Rolls, in Re Chambers (34 Beav. 177), where that learned judge says: "I am of opinion that a solicitor cannot deliver his bill with items of overcharge, and say, 'I do not intend this to be my bill, but, if objected to, I intend to deliver another,' nor after a bill has once been referred for taxa. tion, when he finds that items in it will be struck off, can be deliver another bill of costs." But in that case the learned judge allowed the substitution of a second bill, as the substituted bill was delivered before the service of or notice of the order to tax, and he added," Lord Langdale held, and I have also held, that a solicitor cannot substitute, as a matter of course, a second bill for the first, but I have not held that you never can do it." This again was followed, in 1870. by the Chancery Appeal Court, in the case of Re Heather (L. Rep. 5 Ch. 694); and again, in 1881, bv Sir George Jessel, in the case Re Holroyde and Smith (43 L. T. Rep. N. S. 722), where he took occasion to explain an apparent difference between Re Heather (ubi sup.) and Re Chambers (ubi sup.), and to observe that the marginal note of the latter case in 34 Beav. 177 is not quite accurate. He says: "If Re Chambers (ubi sup.) and Re Heather (wbi sup.) had not been reconcilable, then Re Heather would have been binding upon me, in the first place, because it is a decision of the Court of Appeal, and, in the next place, because it is a more recent decision. The reporters' marginal note to Re Chambers (ubi sup.) is certainly not reconcilable with the decision in Re Heather (ubi sup.)." From these cases it will be seen that, if a solicitor deliver a bill of costs, and if it be erroneous, or if objectious be taken to it, he cannot withdraw it and substitute another for it, but the taxation must proceed on the first bill; at the same time, however, the cases show that, if the first bill be erroneous through accident or mistake, the court will in general allow it to be withdrawn, and a corrected bill delivered. Where a client admits the retainer and the work done, and merely dispotes some of the items of the bill of costs, the solicitor suing for his costs may proceed to sign judgment under Order XIV., r. 1 (Smith v. Edwardes, 60 L. T. Rep. N. S. 10, 22 Q. B. Div. 10); but, if he does so, the form of the order must preserve all the rights of the defendant under sect. 37 of the Solicitors Act, 1843. The form of the order in such case was settled by Lord Justice Fry, and approved of by the Court of Appeal in Smith v. Edwardes (ubi sup.)-Law Times.

any rule-making authority as defined by the bill shall be published in draft in the Gazette forty days before they are signed, so that the profession and the public may have some information as to what is proposed.— Law Journal.

ATTEMPTING THE IMPOSSIBLE.

We find our taste for definitions and our fondness for animals gratified in Regina v. Brown, 24 Q. B. Div. 357, where Lord Coleridge, C.J., Pollock B., and Field, Manisty, Cave, Day, and Grantham, JJ., sat upon the grave question whether a duck is an animal. We rejoice to find our impression of some years' standing confirmed by the decision of the court that a duck is an animal. This speaks well for the judgment of the judges, for according to the senior Mr. Weller, "the man as can form a ackerate judgment of a animal, can form a ackerate judgment of anythiu'." The more important question however was as to the definition of an "attempt." The conviction was of an attempt to commit an unnatural offence with domestic fowls, including, we infer, a duck, and the point was raised, that as the offence was impossible of commission, there could be no "attempt" to commit it. In other words, that there can be no attempt to do the impossible. The court unanimously denied that reason. ing, disapproving Reg. v. Collins and Reg. v. Dodd, in which it was held that where one put his hand into another person's empty pocket be could not be convicted of an attempt to steal. This accords with our views, and two American cases-Com. v. M'Donald, 5 Cush. 365, and People v. Jones, 46 Mich. 441-bold precisely the same doctrine; and Rogers v. Com., 5 S. & R. 462; State v. Wilson, 30 Conn. 500; Kunkle v. State, 32 Ind. 520; Hamilton v. State, 36 id. 280; State v. Beal, 37 Ohio St. 108, hold the like doctrine in respect to acts with intent to do a particular thing. Mr. Bishop is of the same opinion. But the Supreme Court of this State, in People v. Moran, 54 Hun, 279, hold the contrary of an attempt to pick a pocket which was empty, Van Brunt, P. J., and Barrett, J., being of that opinion, but Daniels, J., dissenting. The court had not the last English case before them. Judge Barrett distinguishes between "attempt" and "intent"-"an act done with a particular intent and an attempt to commit a specifio offence," and he is "surprised at Mr. Bishop's difficulty in reconciling the cases. Mr. Jerome's illustrations are apt and plausible, but hardly convincing. I agree that if we throw a stone at a piece of plate-glass, and fail to break it because the glass was too strong, there is an attempt to break plate-glass. The act tended to break it, and failed. If however the stone were thrown at what appeared to be plate-glass, but was not, the wrong-doer might be guilty of throwing with intent to break plate-glass, but no matter what was in his mind, he could not be guilty of an attempt to break anything save the shining object which he mistook for glass. So as to the scare-crow illustration, a man does not in a legal sense attempt to commit murder, when passing through a field in the dusk, he shoots at a dummy, believing it to be his enemy. He shoots with intent to kill his enemy, but that is not the crime of an attempt to commit murder." This seems to us too fine, although it is very ingenious. Suppose that a man wrongfully shoots at another man, and hits him, but the latter is clad in underwear of impenetrable steel. Will Judge Barrett tell us that there is no attempt to commit murder? To attempt means to try, and that is all there is of the dispute. There is no distinction in law or logic or usage between "attempt" and "intent." A man may "attempt" to jump over a fence ten feet high, although it is impossible, and his endeavour is not simply an "intent to attempt to jump over the fence. The intent is involved in the attempt. The matter is reduced to absolute common sense in the Roger's case, where it is said: "The intention of the person was to pick the pocket of Earle of whatever he found in it, and although there might be nothing in the pocket, the intention to steal is the same." For "intention" read

"

"attempt," and the law and sense are just as good. And forcibly and more elaborately the same idea is expressed in Com. v. Jacobs, 9 Allen, 274: "Whenever the law makes one step toward the accomplishment of an unlawful object, with the intent or purpose of accomplishing it, criminal, a person taking that step with that intent or purpose, and himself capable of doing every act on his part to accomplish that object, cannot protect himself from responsibility by showing that by reason of some fact unknown to him at the time of his criminal attempt, it could not be fully carried into effect in the particular instance." Judge Barrett is right in saying that "an attempt to commit larceny necessarily contemplates an act tending to effect the felonious taking of specific property." He is wrong, we think, in supposing that the specific property must be present so that it can be taken. Suppose it were a pocket-book, and the pickpocket got hold of it, but could not remove it because it was firmly fastened to the bottom of the pocket. Would there not still have been an attempt to take it? This case is not different from the case of the empty pocket. Bishop says, very exquisitely: "The means must be adapted to the end, but the adaptation need only be apparent."-Albany Law Journal.

The Law Quarterly Review dismisses the case of Reg. v. Collins with the following rather contemptuous observations: "That a man who puts his hand into your pocket animo furandi is not guilty of an attempt to steal if the pocket is empty, savours more of casuistry than common sense. Yet Reg. v. Collins (9 Cox C. C. 497) so decided. The Court of Crown Cases Reserved is not satisfied' with this decision (Queen v. Brown, 24 Q. B. Div. 357). Probably no one is but Mr. Bill Sykes." It may be suggested with great respect that the opinion of Mr. Justice Barrett in People v. Moran (54 Han, 279; cited in 3 Harv. L. Rev. 375) contains arguments which have "satisfied" judges of some eminence, and which do not appear to have been answered in any reported case.-Harvard Law Review.

INSURING MY NEIGHBOUR'S SAFETY. The decisions that have been given during the last 20 years upon this subject have, upon the whole, bad a useful tendency. It is true that there are still one or two points on which my neighbour and I may have some difficulty in determining which of us is the wrongdoer, but in the vast majority of cases the law is well settled. The duty imposed upon me is a strict one. It is hard to enunciate the principle upon which the liability rests, but an acute observer has said that the ground on which the rule of strict obligation has been maintained and consolidated by modern authorities is the maguitude of the danger, coupled with the difficulty of proving negligence as the specific cause, in the particular event of the danger having ripened into actual harm. It is not merely the standard of reasonable care that is applied; it is not sufficient that a prudent man should exercise due caution in dealing with dangerous things such as poisons, fire, water, or dangerous weapons, the duty is absolute and the course adopted by our courts has been to "consolidate the Judgment of fact into an unbending rule of law." The law takes notice that certain things are a source of extraordinary risk, and a man who exposes his neighbour to such risk is held, although his act is not wrongful, to insure bis neighbour against any consequent harm not due to some cause beyond human foresight and control. The general rule as enunciated in the well-known case of Fletcher v. Rylands, L. R. 3 H. L. 330, is that the person who, for his own purposes, brings on his lands, aud collects and keeps there, anything likely to do mischief if it escapes, must keep it in at his peril, and, if he does not do so, is prima facie answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape. can excuse himself by showing that the escape was owing to the plaintiff's default; or perhaps that the

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escape was the consequence of vis major or the act of God. The general rule is a just one. The person, said Lord Blackburn (supra), whose grass or corn is eaten down by the escaping cattle of his neighbour, or whose mine is flooded by the water from his neighbour's reservoir, or whose celler is invaded by the filth of his neigh. bour's privy, or whose habitation is made unhealthy by the fumes and noisome vapours of his neighbour's alkali works is damnified without any fault of his own; and it seems but reasonable and just that the neighbour who has brought something on his own property which was not naturally there, harmless to others so long as it is confined to his own property but which he knows to be mischievous if it get on his neighbour's, should be obliged to make good the damage which ensues if he does not succeed in confining it to his own property. But for his aot in bringing it there, no mischief could have accrued, and it seems but just that he should at his peril keep it there so that no mischief may accrue, answer for the natural and anticipated consequences.

or

In Ellis v. The Loftus Iron Company, L. R. 10 C. P. 10, an interesting illustration appears of cattle trespass. The plaintiff was the occupier of a farm, and by arrangements between the plaintiff's landlord, the plaintiff, and the defendants, a portion of the plaintiff's farm was let to the defendants for the execution of certain works, and a plot was fenced in by the defendants by means of a wire fencing. The plaintiff's land, which adjoined the part taken by the defendants, was used by him as graz. ing land for horses and cattle to the knowledge of the defendants. The defendants were possessed of an entire horse, which was turned into the plot occupied by the defendants. The plaintiff bad full knowledge of the condition of the fence surrounding it. The plaintiff put a mare to graze in the remaining portion of the field adjoining that portion occupied by the defendants. The defendants' horse and the plaintiff's mare got close together on either side of the wire fence, and the horse, by biting and kicking the mare, injured it. It was in evidence that the defendants' horse did not trespass on the land of the plaintiff by crossing the fence. Both animals were close to the fence when the injury happened, Upon these facts the court held that the defendants' horse bad committed a trespass, for which they must make good to the plaintiff the loss he had sustained thereby. The trespass here was, of course, a small one. Some portion of the body of the defendants' horse must have been over the boundary. That constitutes a trespass in law. The court cannot measure the amount of the supposed trespass. If the defendant had placed a part of his foot on the plaintiff's laud unlawfully, it is, in law, as much a trespass as if he had walked half a mile on it. It has, moreover, been held again and agaia that there is a duty on a man to keep his cattle in, and if they get on another's land it is a trespass; and that is irrespective of any question of negligence, whether great or small. A similar point was held in Smith v Cook, 1 Q. B. D. 79, which was an action on a contract. The defendant, an agister of cattle, placed the plaintiff's horse in a field with a number of heifers, knowing that a bull, kept on the adjoining land, had several times been found in the field, and that there was no sufficient fence to keep it out. He did not, however, know that the bull was of a mischievous disposition. The horse was gored by the bull and killed, and in an action against the defendant for breach of contract to take reasonable care, the jury found for the plaintiff, and the Court of Queen's Bench declined to interfere with the verdict. It was argued on behalf of the defendant that there was no breach of duty in not guarding others against the violence of cattle or other beasts which are which are not known to be of a fierce disposition, and that where the action is founded on contract, proof of knowledge or want of knowledge is equally essential. Blackburn, J., in his judgment, however, pointed out that although the owner of an animal, such as a cow, which he allows to roam about, is responsible for the damage caused by trespassing, yet that in the case of animals not of mischievous nature, he is entitled to

suppose that they will not injure anyone until he has had actual knowledge to bring him to a contrary opinion Knowledge of the fierceness of the animal called in pleading the scienter, was long ago held to be necessary. There is a case in Dyer's Reports, 25, pl. 162, where it was so held, and in the margin of that case there are references to earlier authorities in the Year Books. The curious might also consult the Book of Exodus, c. xxi., v. 29. Recent cases show that in the case of dogs scienter must be established, and in one case it was beld that if the owner of a dog appoints a servant to keep it, the servant's knowledge of the dog's ferocity is the knowledge of the master. But the necessity of proving the scienter is often a greater burden on the plaintiff than that of proving negligence would be; and as regards injury to cattle or sheep, it has been done away with by statute. (28 & 29 Vict., c. 60).

In one of the Year Books it is stated to be the custom of the realm that every man must safely keep his own fire so that no damage in anywise happen to his neigh. bour (Y. B. 2 Hen. IV., 18, pl. 5). The common law rule applied to a fire made out of doors for burning weeds or the like, as well as to fire in a dwelling-house. Liability for domestic fires has been dealt with by statute, and a man is not now answerable for damage done by fire which began in his house or on his land by accident and without negligence. The development of the railway industry has brought into discussion injuries done by fire issuing from locomotive engines, and it is now definitely settled that one who causes such injuries by running a locomotive on a railway without express statutory authority for their use, or bringing a traction engine on a highway, does so at his peril.

In Southcote v. Stanley, 25 L. J. Ex. 339, the relation of host and guest was discussed. The declaration alleged that the plaintiff was lawfully in the defendant's house as a visitor, by his invitation, and that, for the purpose of leaving the house, the plaintiff, with the defen. dant's permission and knowledge, opened a glass door of the defendant's which it was necessary to open, and that, by the carelessness, negligence, aud default of the defendant, the door was in an insecure and dangerous condition, and unfit to be opened, and by reason thereof a piece of glass fell from the door upon the plaintiff and injured him. This was held to disclose no cause of action. The guest in such a case is, in point of law, nothing but a licensee. The reason given is that he cannot have higher rights than a member of the household of which he has, for the time being, become, as it were, a part. So a son cannot bring an action against his father, nor can a person who volunteers his assistance bring an action on account of some mischance happening through a servant or other member of the family, because he is himself for the occa. sion one of the family. All he is entitled to is that he is not to be led into a danger known to his host, and not known or reasonably apparent to himself. Moffat v. Bateman, L. R. 3 P. C. 115, a case in the Privy Council on appeal from the Supreme Court of Victoria, was decided on the same principle. The action was for negligence by the defendant in conveying the plaintiff, who was in the defendant's service, to perform for him certain work. The defendant drove, and while on the road the ringbolt of the carriage broke, the horses bolted, the carriage was overturned, and the plaintiff injured. There was no evidence of gross neglect on the part of the defendant. Here, again, it was held that there was no cause of action disclosed. The defendant was not answerable for an accident due to any defect in the carriage of which he was not aware. Sir Frederick Pollock is inclined to assume that a licensor is answerable to the licensee for ordinary negligence in the sense that his own act or omission will make him liable if it is such that it would create liability as between two persons having an equal right to be there; for example, if J. S. allows me to use his private road, it will hardly be said that, without express warning, I am to take the risk of J. S. driving furiously thereon. But the whole subject of a licensee's rights and risks is still by no means free from difficulty.

Since the above was written the report of the case of Giles v. Walker has appeared in the current number of the Law Reports (24 Q. B. D. 656), in which it was held that an occupier of land is under no duty towards his neighbour to periodically cut the thistles naturally growing on his land so as to prevent them from seeding; and if, owing to his neglect to cut them, the seeds are blown on to his neighbour's land and do damage he is not liable. The ground of the decision seems to be that there was no duty to cut the thistles, which were the natural growth of the soil.-Justice of the Peace.

THE CASE OF CRAWFORD V. FORSHAW.

A curious question was decided by Mr. Justice Kekewich in the case of Crawford v. Forshaw, reported in the current number of the Law Journal Reports, p. 348. A testator appointed three executors, of whom oue renounced probate, and gave the residue of his estate to "the above-named charitable institutions, or such others or additional as my executors herein named may select, in such proportious as they may approve of." The learned judge held that the renouncing executor was entitled to take part in the selection of the charities. Most persons will think this to be a rather strained interpretation of the will. It is based to some extent on the words "herein named," and the argument is that it is a power given to gentlemen in whom the testator reposed great personal confidence. There would be some force in this if the words had been the other way about, and the testator had said, "A., B., and C., whom I have at the beginning of the will appointed executors." But the power is given to "my executors," and the words "herein named cannot extend it to a person who never became executor. Whatever, however, may be said for this reasoning, it is much more difficult to accept the judge's view that the renouncing executor became a trustee with the acting executors of this residue intended for charity, or to see what "the distinction between executor and trustee has to do with the question. There is not much direct authority on the subject. Lord St. Leonards (Powers, 8th edition, p. 118) says, it is true, "that where a power is given to executors they may exercise it, although they renounce probate of the will." But the case from the Year-books of Henry VII. cited by Lord St. Leonards in support of this proposition is to the effect that if a man makes a will that his executors shall alien his land, "without naming their proper names," the executors may sell, though they renounce administration. The point seems to be that, as the power had nothing to do with their duties as executors, being concerned with real estate, the renunciation of these daties could not deprive them of the power. Moreover, Lord St. Leonards' doctrine is doubted in "Williams on Executors," 8th edition, p. 290, "unless when the power is given them in their proper names, and withont reference to their office as executors." This was certainly not so in the present case. Keates v. Burton, 14 Vesey, 434, which was cited in the argument and judgment, so far as it goes, is distinctly against the decision in Crawford v. Forshaw, for, speaking of the power given to the executors, Sir W. Grant says: "They have renounced the only character in which it was competent for them to exercise it." On the whole, there seems to be considerable authority against and little in favour of the decision in Crawford v. Forshaw.-Law Journal.

SUCCESS OF AN IRISH STUDENT IN LONDON.

Last week we announced that Mr. Charles Matario, B.A., T.C.D., Student of King's Inns, had obtained first place and a studentship of 200 guineas at an examination held by the four Iuns of Court, London. Since then Mr. Maturin has also obtained first place and the Bacon Scholarship of £45 a year for two years at an examination held in Gray's Inn, of which he is a member.

REVOCATION OF WILLS BY CUTTING OR

ERASURE.

A belief that a person could not wholly disinherit his children led to the trite phrase "to cut him off with a shilling." In the Goods of Dinah Leach (ante, p. 27) the testatrix said that she had "cut G. out of her will." This was no figurative phrase, implying simply that she had revoked a legacy previously given by her will to G., as she literally cut the name of G., whom she had appointed as an executor, out of the will with a pair of Boissors. The testatrix, it seems, was G.'s mother-inlaw, and some disagreement had taken place between G. and his wife. Mr. Justice Butt held that there had been only a partial revocation, and that the will was entitled to probate in the form in which it was found at the testatrix's death. It would have been better for G. if his name had never been in the will at all, as, though notice had been given to him by direction of the judge, he was not allowed his costs on the application for probate. In the Goods of Maley (57 L. T. Rep. N. S. 500; 12 P. Div. 134) the facts were somewhat similar. A testator appointed C. and M. trustees and executors of his will, and gave a legacy to C. if he should act as trustee. The testator and C. quarrelled, and legal proceedings took place between them. The former told a friend that he had cut "that rascal C." out of his will with a pair of scissors, and on his death it was discovered that the portion relating to the appointment of execu tors and the lecacy to C. had been cut off, the cut-off piece being found in the bag containing the will. The President expressed his opinion that by cutting out this part of the will the testator had revoked the legacy to C. and the appointment of executors. In the Goods of Henrietta Morton (57 L. T. Rep. N. S. 501; 12 P. Div. 141) the testatrix erased, apparently with a penknife, the signatures of herself and the attesting witnesses. Mr. Justice Butt said: "I have no doubt about this case. When a person sets to work to scratch out he actually cats away the paper. What this testatrix did may be regarded as a lateral cutting out. The paper is not pierced, but the signatures are scratched away. I think the will has been revoked." On the other hand, a subsequent erasure of their own initials by the witnesses to the will of a dying man was held by. the President to be no re vocation in Margery and Layard v. Robinson (57 L. T. Rep. N. S. 281; 12 P. Div. 8). In that case the witnesses, having duly attested a card on which the wishes of the testator, elicited from him with some difficulty, were written, thought that they had undertaken too great a responsibility, and erased their initials, telling the testator that they did not consider it a will, but only a memorandum. They said that the testator gave signs of assent to all this. The distinction between an erasure by the testator and by the witnesses is obvious, as the former has the power to revoke the will, the latter have not. Sir James Hannen, in delivering judgment, said: "Whether they (i.e., the witnesses) thought it to be a valid will or a memorandum is immaterial. The function of witnesses to a will is simply to authenticate the testator's signa. ture, and, this being done, their opinions, or beliefs, or intentions are irrelevant. I am further of opinion that the subsequent erasing of attestation by the witnesses is immaterial." His lordship, however, pronounced against the card on the ground that the testator's mark was in the middle of the will instead of "at the foot or end thereof." In the Goods of Gosling (11 P. Div. 79) the testator obliterated the whole of a codicil, including his own signature, and the subscriptions of the attesting witnesses, by means of thick black ink marks, and wrote at the bottom of it, signed by himself and two witnesses, the words, "We are witnesses to the erasure of the above." The effect of the obliteration, if it had stood alone, was not considered, as the words below the codicil were held to be words declaring an intention to revoke within the 20th section of the Wills Act. "If a testament was in the custody of the testator, and upon bis death it is found among his repositories mutilated or defaced, the testator himself is to be presumed to

have done the act; and it has already appeared that the law further presumes that he did it animo revocandi." That proposition, laid down in Mr. Justice Williams's standard work on Executors (8th ed., vol. 1, p. 160), received the sanction of Lord Penzance in Bell v. Fothergill (28 L. T. Rep. N. S. 323; L. Rep. 2 P. & D. 148), where the testator appears to have repented of his revocation of the will, and to have gummed on the signature which he had previously cut off. His lordship held that the will had been revoked by the cutting, and that the subsequent gumming on was not sufficient to revive it.-Law Times.

NOTES OF CASES.

CIRCUIT CASES RESERVED.

(Before O'BRIEN, C.J., PALLES, C.B., HARRISON, O'BRIEN, MURPHY, and ANDREWS, JJ.)

In re CURRAN'S PRESENTMENT.

June 16, 1890.-Presentment-Compensation for maiming-Injury causing disablement-6 & 7 Will. ÏV., c. 116, 8. 106.

Case reserved by Palles, C.B., from the last assizes for the South Riding of Tipperary, in connection with a presentment for £100 made in favour of Sergeant Timothy Curran, of the Royal Irish Constabulary, in respect of an injury sustained by him at the railway station, Tipperary, on the 29th of July last year. It appeared that while Sergeant Curran was on duty there he received a severe wound on the head. According to the evidence of Dr. Nadin and Dr. Russell he received a lacerated scalp wound, with serious injury to the periosteum, with a possibility of brain disease ensuing, but there was no indication of fracture of the skull. Sergeant Curran had to remain in hospital for several days, and it was necessary for some time after to place bim on light duty, such duty only as his strength would permit him to discharge. It was stated that even yet be suffers from the pressure of his helmet and from changes of the weather. Under the circumstances the Grand Jury made the presentment in question.

Mr. Frewen, solicitor, on the part of a cesspayer, objected to the presentment being flated on the ground that Curran had not been maimed within the meaning of 6 & 7 Will. IV., c. 116, s. 106.

"

Ryan, Q.C., appeared in support of the presentment, and contended that "maiming was equivalent to disabling. The section of the Act gave the right to com. pensation in the case of murder or of maiming.

O'BRIEN, C.J., delivered the unanimous judgment of the court, holding that the injury was of a character coming within the statute, and that therefore the presentment should be fiated.

In re WALPOLE'S PRESENTMENT.

Jure 16, 1890.-Presentment-Malicious injury-Giving in examinations on oath-Time-Prevention by illness-6 & 7 Will. IV., c. 116, ss. 135, 137.

Case reserved by Palles, C.B., from the last assizes for the Queen's County, arising out of a presentment in favour of Mrs. Susan Walpole in respect to malicious injury to a threshing machine, her property, and destruction of the windows and sashes of her house on the lands of Graigueard. The threshing machine had been left in a barn on a farm which had been boycotted and unoccupied. No evidence was produced as to the exact date of the alleged malicious injuries, but on the 18th of July, 1889, a person who had not been on the farm for more than six days previously observed them. notices prescribed by 6 & 7 Will. IV., c. 116, s. 135, were served within six days after the 18th of July. By section 137 of the same Act it is provided that a persou applying for compensation should, within three days after the commission of the injury, unless prevented by illness or other sufficient cause, give in a statement on

The