chance verdict of a chance-selected body of men like a jury. It might be wiser that this most difficult of medical inquiries should be left to be decided by the skill and wisdom of a specially trained body of medical men, who might with the assistance of counsel calmly discuss the interesting and difficult problems raised. But while the ordinary jury remain the ultimate arbiters on these questions, then it is advisable to simplify the trial for them to the atmost degree by giving them some fairly clear test of sanity and insanity. We notice that Dr. Maudsley condemns the definition or test as given in the answers of the judges to the House of Lords in the celebrated M'Naughten case, namely that "To establish a defence on the grounds of insanity, it must be clearly proved that at the time of committing the act the party aconsed was labouring under such a defect of reason from disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or, if he did know it, that he did not know that he was doing what was wrong, as the Judges limited this rule by the qualifications that if a person under an insane delusion as to existing facts were to kill another in supposed self-defence he would be exempt from punishment; but if his delusion were (e.g.) that the deceased bad inflicted a serious injury to his character and fortune, and he killed him in revenge for such supposed injury, he would be liable to punishment." This assumes that a man may suffer from an insane delusion and still act reasonably-a contradictory and confusing qualification, and extremely difficult of application. We much prefer the decision of the Court of New Hampshire (quoted by Dr. Mandsley) where in the State v. Pike, Chief Justice Perley told the jury that they should return a verdict of not guilty, "if the killing was the offspring of mental disease in the defendant; that neither delusion nor knowledge of right or wrong, nor design or cunning in planning and executing that killing, and in escaping or avoiding detection, nor ability to recognise acquaintance, or to labour or transact business or manage affairs, is, as a matter of law, a test of mental disease, but that all symptoms and all tests of mental disease are purely matters of fact to be determined by a jury." While therefore these questions are to be decided by a jury, the proper test question will be something to this effect-Was the act the offspring or product of mental disease? And therefore to lay down any so-called test of responsibility founded on a supposed knowledge of right and wrong is "an interference with the province of the jury, and the enunciation of a proposition which in its essence is not law, and which could not in any view safely be given to the jury as a rule for their guidance, because it may be false in fact." Of course these observations assume the propriety of leaving these questions to the ordinary jarv, but the very ab-truseness of them of necessity raises the other question, whether difficult problems of this kind should not always be tried by a skilled jury of medical and legal experts. We do not desire for an instant to infringe on the province of juries in ordinary questions of fact, but it can hardly be maintained that the ordinary jury is the fittest tribunal to discuss fine points of physiology and law.-Australian Law Times.

VOLENTI NON FIT INJURIA.

In a leading case to which we refer at length hereafter, Lord Esher, M.R., said he "detested the attempt to fetter the law by maxims. They were almost invarjably misleading; they were for the most part so large aud general in their language that they always included something which really was not meant to be included in them." No better illustration of the truth of the statement could be supplied than that furnished by the difficulties which have arisen in recent cases over the application of the principle indicated by this maxim to actions under the Employers' Liability Act. These recent oaяen are Sanders v. Barker, VI. Times Law Reports 324, and Amos v. Duffy, ibid 339, but it will be Convenient before considering them to deal with the

earlier cases of Thomas v. Quartermaine, L. R. 18 Q. B. D. 685, and Yarmouth v. France, L. R. 19 Q. B. D. 647, on which they are based.

In Thomas v. Quartermaine (ubi sup.) the plaintiff was employed iu a cooling-room in defendant's brewery, in which there was a boiling vat and a cooling vat, with a passage between them, this passage being in fact only three feet wide. The cooling vat had a rim raised 16 in. above the level of the passage, but it was not fenced or railed in. The plaintiff went along this passage to pull a board from under the boiling vat. The board stuck fast, and then came away suddenly, so that he fell back into the cooling vat and was scalded, Actiou was brought under the Employers' Liability Act, 1880, and the Court of Appeal (Bowen and Fry, L.JJ., Lord Esher, M.R., dissenting) held that the defence arising from the maxim, "volenti non fit injuria," had not been affected by the Employers' Liability Act, 1880, aud applied to that case; that there was no evidence of negligence arising from a breach of duty on the part of defeudant towards the plaintiff, and that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover. Bowen, L.J., in his judgment considered the alternative views which had been submitted to the Court. "Had the Act merely placed an injured workman (as regards his remedies) in the same position (with specified exceptions) as he would have occupied if he had not been in the master's employ? or had it goue further, and imposed on masters new duties and liabilities towards their servants, which the master would not be under towards the general public or the servants of anybody else?" His lordship thought the first was the effect of the Act, for apart from the preciseness of the language of section 1, it must be observed that if the Act intended to prescribe some new measure of duty, the least one might expect would be that it should define it. That duty, which did not exist at law, and was not defined by statute, he added, would be a duty that had no limits, except the benevolence of a jury exercised at the expense of the pockets of other people. As for the argument based on sect. 2, sub-sec. 3, which, it was said, was inconsistent with the idea of mere knowledge constituting a defence, because it assumed knowledge, and threw on the servant the duty of informing the master, there were three answers: the clause was part of a provision purporting to limit, uot to extend an employer's liability; section 2 had already, in the plainest language, provided that the master was not to be liable, unless for defects that arise through, or have remained undiscovered or unremedied, owing to the negligence of the employer or his other servants; and further, in the case of the outside world there were and always had been defects caused by negligence in a master's premises, for which the master would be liable, even when both he and his visitors knew of them; defects, for example, caused by the neglect of some statutory provision, to the benefit of which the person using the premises is entitled; and defects caused by the negligence, either of master or servant, of which the injured person had not really taken ou himself the risk. The Act, with certain exceptions, had placed the workman in a position as advantageous as, but no better than, that of the rest of the world who use the master's premises at his invitation on business. The maxim was not "scienti non fit injuria," but "volenti.' The County Court Judge, while negativing contributory negligence, had found that the plaintiff had knowledge of the danger. Knowledge was not conclusive where it was consistent with the facts that from its imperfect character, or otherwise the entire risk, though in one sense known, was not voluntarily encountered; but there, on the plain facts of the case, knowledge on the plaintiff's part could mean only one thing. For many months the plaintiff, a man of full intelligence, had seen this vat, known all about it, appreciated its danger, elected to continue working near it. It appeared to him that legal language had no meaning, unless it were held that knowledge such as that amounted to a voluutary eucountering of the risk. The reasoning on which the judgment in defendant's favour is based has not met with general assent; but though in the circumstances

he was undoubtedly entitled to succeed, it is clear that the judgment could be supported without maintaining all the propositions enunciated by the majority, aud undoubtedly many of them dicta merely.

In Yarmouth v. France (ubi sup.), which came before Lord Esher, M.R., Lindley and Lopes, L.JJ., sitting as a Divisional Court, we have another dissenting judgment. There plaintiff was in the employment of defendant, a wharfinger, and it was his duty to drive certain carts and horses belonging to his employer, and load and unload certain goods which were carried in them; one of these horses was of a vicious nature, and unfit to be driven, even by a careful driver. Plaintiff objected to drive it, and told the foreman of the stable that it was unfit to be driven, to which the foreman replied that the plaintiff must go on driving it, and if any accident happened his employer would be responsible. The plaintiff did so, and while sitting on his proper place on the cart was kicked by the animal and his leg broken. Lord Esher, M.R., and Lindley, L.J. (Lopes, L.J., dissenting), held that on the facts a jury might find the defendant to be liable, for there was evidence of negligence on the part of the foremar, and the circumstances did not conclusively show that the risk was voluntarily incurred by the plaintiff. Lord Esher, in the course of his judgment, said the effect of the judgment of Bowen, L.J., in Thomas v. Quartermaine, was that mere knowledge of the danger "would not do-there must be an assent on the part of the workman to accept the risk, with a full appreciation of its extent to bring the workman within the maxim volenti non fit injuria.' If so, it was a question of fact. The Judge of the Court below had come to the Conclusion that the moment it appeared the plaintiff knew and appreciated the danger, and did not at once quit the defendant's employ, he came within the maxim, aud was disentitled to recover. He did not bring his mind to bear ou the motives which induced the plaintiff to act as he did-whether he relied upon the foremau's statement that the employer would be respousible in case of an accident, or whether he was influenced by the fear of being thrown out of employ if he disobeyed the fore man's orders; all that was for a jury, and the case must go down for a new trial." It is obvious that, though the plaintiff in this case had full knowledge of the nature and extent of the risk, there was evidence on which a jury night find that he did not impliedly agree to incur it on the terms that the master should not be liable. Lindley, L.J., said, the conversation with the foreman, though not evidence against the defendant of any promise by him to take the risk, was admissible to explain the conduct of the plaintiff, and to rebut the inference that he voluntarily took the risk upon himself. Apart, however, from this ground, it must be confessed the case certainly seems difficult to reconcile with the doctrine laid dowu by Bowen, L.J., and adopted by Fry, L.J., in Thomas v. Quartermaine (ubi supra); for Lindley, L.J., went ou to say that "if nothing more is proved than that the workman saw a danger (he had not engaged to incur), reported it, but on being told to go on, went on as before in order to avoid dismissal, a jury may, in my opinion, properly find that he had not agreed to take the risk, and had not acted voluntarily in the sense of having taken the risk upon himself. Fear of dismissal rather than voluntary action might properly be inferred." As Lopes, L.J., pointed out in his dissenting judgment, this is opposed to Woodley v. Metropolitan District Railway, 2 Ex. D. 384: "Looking at the matter from a legal point of view, if a man, for the sake of the employment, takes it or continues in it with a knowledge of its risks, be must trust to himself to keep clear of injury."

A8

Iu Sunders v. Barker (ubi supra) the machinery of defendants was defective, there being a turning-wheel which ought to have worked by the steam alone, but required a touch or two to set it going, which touches plaintiff used to give with bis finger. On the occasion in question his finger was caught and injured so that be lost i. He admitted, in cross-examination, that he knew there was a risk, but said he had not full knowledge of the risk he was incurring, but only that an accident might happen; and he had given notice to the defen

dants of the defects, the existence of which they knew. At the trial in the City of London Court, the jury found there was a defect in the machinery, by reason of neglect on the part of the employers, but that the plaintiff knew of the risk and worked voluntarily with that knowledge. The Judge (Mr. Kerr) directed verdict to be entered for defendants, but gave leave to plaintiff to move that the verdict be entered for him for damages, which the jury assessed at £20. A Divisional Court (Lord Coleridge, L.C.J., and Mathew, J.) were of opinion that judgment ought to be entered for the plaintiff, but with leave to appeal. The jury had found the machinery defective, in consequence of the employer's negligence; the man could not be said to have been volens, for he bad remonstrated with his master about the danger. No doubt the jury bad found the man worked "voluntarily," with knowledge of the danger, but their finding could not be considered conclusive, for that word raised a question of great difficulty for a jury, unless it was properly explained to them, and whether he knew of the particular risk of having his finger crushed off had not been put to them. Moreover, the jury had said plaintiff "was aware that an accident might happen," which was true of any engine or machinery. This case seems to us about the most unsatisfactory of the three. How the finding of the jury that the machinery was defective in consequence of the employer's negligence, can be supported with their other findings, it is difficult to see, For how could the employers be negligent auless guilty of a breach of some legal duty to the servant? and how could they be guilty of a breach of legal duty if the servant knew the risk and did "voluntarily' continue at work? Moreover, if, as Lord Esher, M. R., laid down in Yarmouth v. France (ubi sup.), it is a question of fact for the jury, ought not the case to have gone back for a new trial? If every case is to be looked at with reference to its circumstances, and judges, ou the one hand, are to "shrink from a definition which would deprive the workman in many cases of all chauce of a remedy," and, on the other, are going behind the findings of a jury on the ground that a term which no oue ventures to define("voluntarily ") has not been properly explained to them, and their use of it caunot therefore be con. clusive, the result will indeed be "a new domain of litigation in this class of cases.'

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In Amos v. Duffy (ubi sup.), plaintiff's duty was to work a circular saw fixed in a beuch, there being a guard to protect his hand; this guard moved on a screw attached to the bench; the screw slipped, the plaintiff's band came in contact with the saw, and three fingers were cut off. Plaintiff had some time before complained that the screw was loose to defendant's foreman, who had promised to put in a fresh one. At the trial the County Court Judge left a Lumber of questions to the jury, one of them being whether the plaintiff undertook the work with full knowledge of the extent of the danger he incurred in working with a guard with a loose screw. The jury did not answer the questions, but gave general verdict for plaintiff, with damages. A Divisional Court (Coleridge, L.C.J., and Mathew, J.) entered judgment for defeudauts. The Court of Appeal (Lord Esher, M.R., Fry, and Lopes, L.JJ.) held there was some evideuce for the jury that though the workman kuew of the danger, he did not exactly appreciate it, and there. fore the verdict of the jury could be supported. The vigorous language in which Lord Bramwell pointed out the evils which would result from the passing of the Act will probably recur to anyone who considers the state of things illustrated by the four decisions we have referred to. Res ipsa loquitur. Every case bristles with suggestions of difficulty in the future for the employer and his adviser. Does the workman know-that is, does he fully appreciate the risk? Even if that is, has he expressly or impliedly undertaken it on the terms that the employer shall not be liable in case of accident? The cases we have cited (especially the judgment of Lindley, L.J., in Yarmouth v. France) seem to go as far as this. We shall not be misunderstood; we yield to noue in our sympathy with the workman, and we regard employers as under a moral

duty every whit as onerous as the legal duty which has by these cases been imposed on them. We are prepared to go further, and say that morally no employer has a right to save himself expeuse by holding out the tempting bait of higher wages to induce the workman to run a needless risk. But there are moral duties which are better left unclothed with legal obligation, and if new legal liabilties are to be introduced, unequivocal language should be employed; certainly, above all things, as to right and obligation.-Pump Court.

SALE OF POISONS.

The recent case of The Council of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v. Wheeldon has again called attention to this subject. The sale of poison is regulated by three Acts of Her present Majesty, viz., the 14 & 15 Vict. c. 13 (regulating the sale of arsenic), the Pharmacy Act, 1868, 31 & 32 Vict. c. 121, and the Act to amend the Pharmacy Ac', 1868, 32 & 33 Vict. c. 117. There are, besides, two Acts relating to the sale and use of poisoned grain and flesh, viz., the Poisoned Grain Po hibition Act, 1863, 26 & 27 Vict. c. 113, and the Poisoned Flesh Prohibition Act, 1864, but these are not of such general public importance as the others before mentioned.

The 14 & 15 Vict. c. 13 provides in section 1 that on every sale of arsenic, particulars of the sale are to be entered in a book by the seller in the form set forth in the schedule to the Act, which gives the date of sale, the name and surname of the purchaser, his place of abode, and condition or occupation in life, the quantity of arsenic sold, and the purpose for which it is required. Section 2 requires that a witness to whom the purchaser is known shall be present at the sale and sign his name to the entry of the sale, and that no arsenic shall be sold to a minor. Section 3 contains a provision that the arsenic sold shall be previously coloured by an admixture of soot or indigo. Section 4 prescribes a penalty not exceeding £20, to be recoverable on summary conviction from any person offending against this Ac Section 5 provides that the Act shall not prevent the Bale of arsenic in medicine according to the prescription of a duly qualified medical practitioner, or wholesale to retail dealers upon an order in writing. And section 6 defines arsenio as used in the Act to include all arsenious compounds.

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The Pharmacy Act, 1868, 31 & 32 Vict. c. 121, provides by section 1 that persons selling or compounding poisons, or assuming the title of chemist and draggist, must le duly qualified and registered and conform to the regulations of the Pharmaceutical Society. Section 2 enacts that the articles named in the schedule A to the Act, and such other articles as the Pharmaceutical Society name from time to time in resolutions approved by the Privy Council and published in the London Gazette, shall be poisons within the Act. Section 3 defines who are chemists and draggists within the meaning of the Act. Sectious 4 to 14 inclusive contain regulations as to registration, examination, &c. Section 15, besides providing for the protection of the titles of chemist and druggist, &c., provides that any person who shall sell or keep an open shop for retailing, dispensing, or com. pounding poisons, not being a duly registered chemist, or who shall fail to conform with any regulation as to the keeping or selling of poisons made in pursuance of this Aot, or who shall compound any medicines of the British Pharmacopoeia, except according to the formularies of the said pharmacopoeia, shall, for every offence, be liable to a penalty of £5.

In the case of The Pharmaceutical Society v. The London and Provincial Supply Association, Limited, 5 App. Cas. 857, where a small body of persous bad btained regis. tration under the Companies Act, 1862 to 1867, and one only of these persons was a qualifi, certified, and registered chemist, and the company sold drugs (including poisons within the Ac') by retail, the registered member being the person appearing in the shop and conducting the sales, for which he received a salary, it was held that the word "person" in the 15th section did

not apply s0 as to make the incorporated company I able to the penalty. But the House of Lords agreed, although it was not a necessary part of their decision, that an unqualified natural person conducting the sales of poison would be liable.

Section 16 of the Act reserves the rights of certain persons, including legally qualified apothecaries, &c. Section 17 prescribes regulations as to sale of poisons to be observed, under the sanction of a £5 penalty for the first offence and £10 for the second or any subsequent offence, as follows:

(1.) The box, bottle, vessel, wrapper, or cover in which the poison is contained must be distinctly labelled with the name of the article and the word "poison," and with the name and address of the seller of the poison.

The person on whose behalf any sale is made by any apprentice or servant is to be deemed to be the seller.

It may be observed, with regard to the requirement as to the "name and address of the seller," that in the case of Templeman v. Trafford, 8 Q. B. D. 397; 46 J. P. 325, it was held that this means the name and address of the person who controls the sale, so that the provisions of the Act were not complied with where the actual seller who sold the poisons sold them in his shop on commission for a duly qualified chemist having a shop in another street of the same town, and the wrapper only bore the name and address of that chemist, and not of the commission agent.

(2.) No poison may be sold to any person unknown to the seller, unless introduced by a person known to the seller.

(3.) Before delivery, the seller must enter in a book the date of the sale, the name and address of the purchaser, the name and quantity of the article sold, and the purpose for which it is required, and this entry must be signed by the purchaser and the person, if any, who introduced him.

The 32 & 33 Vict. c. 117 requires, in addition to these particulars, that the address of the purchaser should be given as well as his name.

Section 17 of the Pharmacy Act, 1868, farther enacts, however, that the second above mentioned regulation shall not apply to wholesale exportations, nor to sales by wholesale to retail dealers in the ordinary course of business, nor shall any of the regulatious apply to any medicine supplied by a legally qualified apothecary to his patient, nor to any article forming part of the ingredients of any medicine dispensed by a duly registered chemist, provided such medicine be labelled with the name and address of the seller, and the ingredients entered, with the name of the person to whom it is sold or delivered, in a book to be kept by the seller for that purpose.

With reference to the latter part of this proviso it was held in the case of Berry v. Henderson, L. R. 5 Q. B. 296, that if a duly registered chemist bona fide believes himself to be dispensing a prescription given by a medical man, and properly labels the medicine, and enters the ingredients in the book with the name of the person written on the prescription for whom it appears to have been prescribed, he cannot be convicted for selling to a person unknown to him, although the person producing the prescription and to whom the medicine is delivered when made up is not known to him or introduced by any one known to him.

Sections 18 to 25 of the Pharmacy Act, 1868, relate to the council of the Pharmaceutical Society, and section 26 empowers the Privy Council to direct the erasure of convicted persons from the register.

In the recent case of The Council of the Pharmaceutical Society v. Wheeldon, the question was whether the uuqualified assistant of a duly registered chemist who, whilst in sole charge of his employer's shop, sold on behalf of his employer a packet of Battle's vermiu killer to a female who came to the shop as a customer, had thereby rendered himself liable to a penalty under section 15 of the Pharmacy Act, 1868, above referred to.

Battle's vermin killer seems to vary in composition, but it contaius from seven to twenty-three per cent. of strychnia, which is a poison, and declared so to be by section 2 of the Act coupled with schedule A. and certain additions duly made thereto in December, 1869, including "every compound coutaining any poison when prepared or sold for the destruction of vermin.' The court held the defendant liable, and in the course of their judgment declared that an unqualified assistant cannot lawfully and with impunity sell any of the poisons to which the Act applies unless upon each Occasion he acts under the personal supervision of a qualified employer or a qualified assistant to such employer. And the court went on to explain that by such personal supervision they meant not mere presence in the shop or room where the sale takes place, but actual personal supervision, so that every individual sale shall be so guarded round by those precautions prescribed by the Act that the safety of every member of the public may be provided for so far as the law can accomplish that object. The court also added a warning at the end of their judgment, of which every chemist will do well to take heed. They said: "We need bardly say that, if mischief arose by reason of a master negligently having an auqualified person in charge of his poisons, no punishment of the assistant would exonerate his master from his civil liability to any person injured; nor if death ensued through such negligence, and a jury found it to be of a criminally culpable character, would he be exonerated from liability to a charge of manslaughter."

The decision, however hardly it may press upon the smaller country chemists, cannot fail to be satisfactory to the general public. As the court pointed out, if the smaller chemists cannot afford to keep qualified assis tants, they must, if they desire to absent themselves from their shops for greater or less periods of time during business hours, take such precautions as are within their power by locking up their poisons, or by other means, to prevent any sale during their absence.

Nevertheless, it must not be supposed that even now the sale of poi-ous is guarded round with all possible precautions. There is one source of danger that was brought prominently before the public some eight years ago, and, as yet, nothing has been done to obviate it. This lies in the unguarded sale of poisons to medical men. It is all very well to belittle the importance of taking the strictest precautions in the case of medical men just as in other cases. But the case of Dr. Lamson was a strong warning against taking too optimistic a view of the moral as well as of the intellectual qualities of duly qualified medical me". The assistant of one of the very first firms of London chemists and druggists sold aconitia to the amount of two grains to Dr. Lamson, whom he had never seen in his life before, and without further precaution than labelling it "poison," merely because, on reference to the Medical Directory, he found the prisoner's name as a medical man practising at Bournemouth, and the prisoner, in giving his name as such, appeared to be respectably dressed, and wrote his order in the style of writing characteristic of medical men. Thes- facts were severely commented on at the time by the learned judge, Hawkins, J., who also happened to be a member of the court deciding the case of the Pharmaceutical Society v. Wheeldon, and he is reported in the shorthand notes to have then said: "It strikes me that anyone could go, if he had Bufficient knowledge to write in the technical style of medical men, and by giving a name in the Medical Directory, and get poison without difficulty, and, though the matter is not before us in this case, it may be that the law requires amendment in this particular." The jury also appended to their verdict a presentment urging greater restrictions on the sale of poisons, with which the learned judge thoroughly agreed, and which he duly forwarded to the Home Secretary. The Government subsequently an ounced that a new Poisons Act was preparing, and that it would deal with patent medicines. But nothing further appears to have been done. -Justice of the Peace.

PRISONERS' ADMISSIONS.

The author of "Circuit Notes" in the Cornhill Magazine gives an amusing instance of an admission made by a prisoner after acquittal, which, if made a few moments earlier, would have effectually knotted the rope for the delinquent.

Once a prisoner was being tried for murder, the evidence against him being purely circumstantial; part of it, a hat found near the scene of the crime, an ordinary round black hat, but sworn to as the prisoner's. Counsel for the defeuce, of course, made much of the commonness of the hat. "You gentlemen, no doubt, each possess such a hat, of the most ordinary make and shape. Beware how you condemn a fellow-creature to a shameful death on such a piece of evidence"-and 80 OD. So the man was acquitted. Just as he was leaving the dock, with the most touching humility and simplicity, he pulled his hair and said, "If you please, my lord, may I 'ave my 'at?"-The Jurist.

LIEN FOR MONEYS ADVANCED TO KEEP UP LIFE POLICIES.

Two recent cases, Re Earl of Winchelsea's Policy Trusts, L. R. 39 Chanc. Div. 168, before Mr. Justice North, and Strutt v. Tippett before the Court of Appeal on January 30, show how dangerous it is for a stranger to advance moneys for keeping up a life-policy in the expectation of obtaining a lien thereon for his advance, unless it is made upon the request (express or implied) of the beneficial owner of the policy.

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In re Leslie; Leslie v. French, L. R. 23 Chanc. Div. 552, in a judgment of Lord Justice Fry (written after he had been appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal, but which Mr. Justice Pearson adopted as his own), it is said, page 560: "In my opinion a lien may be created upon the moneys secured by a policy by payment of premiums in the following cases: First, by contract with a beneficial owner of the policy; secondly, by reason of the right of trustees to an indemnity out of their trust property for money expended by them in its preservation; thirdly, by subrogation to this right of trustees of some person who may at their request have advanced money for the preservation of the property; fourthly, by reason of the right vested in mortgagees or other persons having a charge upon the policy to add to their charge auy moneys which have been paid by them to preserve the property." In The Earl of Winchelsea's Policy Trusts, L. R. 39 Chanc. Div. 172, Mr. Justice North observed: "The principles enunciated by Lord Justice Fry in Re Leslie were in substance adopted by the Court of Appeal in Falcke v. The Scottish Imperial Insurance Company, L. R. 34 Chanc. Div. 234, and I think the Court intended to lay down exhaustively all the cases in which a person not the sole beneficial owner of a policy, who pays a premium in respect of it, is entitled to a lien upon the proceeds of the policy for the amount which he has paid." But in Strutt v. Tippett, although the Court held that the stranger who had there paid premiums had not any lien (a decision which seems to have been fouuded mainly ou special agreement), it would seem that Lord Justice Lindley was of opinion that the list of cases in Re Leslie in which a lien could be obtained was not necessarily exhaustive.

In The Earl of Winchelsea's case policies on his life (and apparently in his name) were assigned by way of mortgage, the equity of redemption being reserved to the earl. A term in real estate was vested in trustees in trust, among other matters, out of the income, to keep down the interest and the premiums on the policies. The earl became bankrupt, and sometime afterwards died. Meauwbile the rents being insufficient to provide for payment of a premium, the trustee of the term had advanced the requisite amouut to save the policy from lapse. It did not appear that this advance was made at the request either of the mortgagees or of the trustee in bankruptcy (it is not stated whether it was made with the knowledge of the

It would seem that notice of an intended payment of a premium might be important, as in West v. Reid, 2 Hare, 249, where, the mortgage of a policy being con. tested by the assignees in bankruptcy of the mortgagor, the solicitors of the mortgagees offered to pay a premium then coming due, if authorised to do so by the assignees; they, however, declined to interfere. The premiums were, in fact, paid by the mortgagees till the life dropped, and it was held that the mortgagees, though not entitled to the policy itself, had a lien for the premiums so paid, with interest. Lord Justice Cotton (L. R. 34 Chanc. Div. 244), referring to the case, thinks it might well be held that there are circumstances from which the law would imply a request or a contract to pay these premiums if the policy ultimately turned out to belong to the assignees and not to the party making the payment"; and Lord Justice Bowen observes (p. 249): Wherever you find that the owner of the property saved knew of the service being performed, you will have to ask yourself (and the question will become one of fact) whether under all the circumstances there was either what the law calls an implied contract for repayment or a contract which would give rise to a lien." Lord Justice Fry, in Re Leslie, L. R. 23 Chanc. Div. 561, refers to that law relating to confusion: If I pour my gold into your heap, or put my silver into your melting-pot, or turn my corn into that in your granary, I have no right to an account or any relief against you;" but in Colwill v. Reeves, 2 Campbell, 576, Lord Ellenborough assigns as a reason because "it is impossible to distinguish what was mine from what what was yours; but such a reason seems in. applicable to a premium, where the amount must be known. And according to 2 Blackstone 405 (Kerr's ed. vol. ii. p. 358), "if the mixture be by consent, both proprietors have according to the English as well as the civil law, an interest in commou in proportion of their respective shares."

may

As Lord Justice Cotton observes in L. R. 34 Chanc. Div. 241, a man who "does work upon a house without request gets Do lien on the house for the work done." But in that case the house remaius in existence, and to give such a lieu would be to allow the stranger "to improve the owner out of his property." As to a policy, however, unless the premium is paid, the policy drops, and it would seem to on this ground that claims for "salvage" have been urged. "It is said to be contrary to natural equity that one person should gain by another mau's loss" (L. R. 23 Chanc. Div. 562), and possibly the maxim, "Qui sentit commodum sentire debet et orus,' give one reason why the question of lien has been so often mooted. Lord Justice Fry, L. R. 34 Chauc. Div. 254 (like Vice-Chancellor Kindersley in Aylwin v. Witty, 30 Law J. Rep. Chanc. 860), doubts whether the term salvage can with propriety be applied to cases of this description. At all events, a person entitled to au interest in an equity of redemption cannot claim a lien for payment of premiums as against his mortgagee (Falcke v. The Scottish Imperial Insurance Company, L. R. 31 Chauc. Div. 243), for "it would be strange indeed if a mortgagor, expending money on the mortgaged property, could establish a charge in respect of that expenditure in priority to the mortgage." Compare Otter v. Lord Vaur, 6 D. M. G. 838.-Central Law Journal.

In the list of gentlemen called to the English Bar are the names of John Francis Taylor, barrist-at-law, King's Inns, Dublin; James Ritchie Macoun, Royal University of Ireland; and Lambert Jobu Blair Boud, B.A., Trinity College, Dublin (2nd class, 30 guineas, Middle Temple Real Property Scholar).

A BARBAROUS JURY CUSTOM. Altered circumstances, resulting from the march of progress and the development of civilisation, should result in appropriate changes of legislation. Only in the matter of the administration of the law do we stand still. We have given up the barbarous practice of subjecting jurors, while deliberating, to hunger and thirst, and cold; why not give up that other relic of barbarism, the senseless rule of unanimity?

The propriety of the rule of unanimity has been a subject of grave doubt for more than a century. Emlyn, as early as 1730, in his preface to the second edition of Howell's "State Trials," makes an eloquent appeal for the abolition of the rule. Hallam, in the supplemental notes to his "Middle Ages," designates it a "preposterous relic of barbarism." The English commou law commissioners of 1831 condemn the rule in very positive language, and propose that the jury shall not be kept in deliberation longer than twelve hours, unless at the end of that period they unanimously agree to apply for further time; and that at the expiration of twelve hours, or of such prolonged time for deliberation, if uine of them concur in a verdict, it shall be taken. Dr. Fraucis Lieber, in his "Civil Liberty and SelfGovernment," and more particularly in an article in the American Law Register for 1867, is outspoken in his condemnation of the practice of requiring unanimous verdicts. Bentham, in his "Essay on the Art of Packing Juries," says it could not have been the work of calm reflection, working by the light of experience, and calls it "no less extraordinary than barbarous." Judge Cooley, in his edition of Blackstone, characterises it as repugnant to all experience of human conduct, passions and understandings," and further says that "it could hardly iu any age bave been introduced into practice by a deliberate act of the legislature." ExGovernor Koerner, of Illinois, calls it 'the illogical unanimity system, which has become a great source of corruption and consequent denial of justice." In 1876, Governor Carpenter, of Iowa, in a message to the legislature of that State, called it “an antique absurdity which has too long fettered the administration of justice." In the same year, a committee of the Wisconsin legislature reported in favour of submitting to the people of that State a constitutional amendment empowering a less number than twelve to return verdict. These few selected from innumerable similar expressions, will suffice to give an idea of the development and strength of the opposition to the iron rule of uuanimity.-Forum.

TRUST AGREEMENTS.

The recent cases on "trusts" suggest, among other more important things, the question whether it is material that the subject-matter of the "trust agreement" be an article of necessity. In the case of the People v. The North River Sugar Refining Co., 7 N. Y. Sup. Ct., 406, some twenty cases are cited and the result summed up in the following senteuce: "In all these cases, the reservation of the power to control the prices of necessary products, whether by express agreement or fair implication, has been condemned as unlawful." In Dolph v. Troy Laundry Co., 28 Fed. Rep., 553, moreover, one of the reasons for holding a contract between two rival traders fixing a scale of prices, legitimate, was that washing machines are not articles of necessity.

In discussing the differences between a monopoly of a necessary and that of a non-necessary (if we may he allowed such a term), one must look at the question both from the side of the monopolist and from that of the public. Of course, the object of a monopolist is to raise prices, and thus enrich himself at the expense of the public. Now, it is undoubtedly true that, as prices are raised in the two cases we are considering, the quantity of the non-necessary demanded by the public will fall off much more rapidly than that of the necessary. In other words, a man cannot make so much money out of the former, because his sales must