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impossibility of removing such as are incapacitated by age or other causes from the performance of their duties.

The dangers to which Charity Funds are exposed by being left standing out on inadequate security are well explained by Mr. Hine.

“The want of an authority to enforce a due investment of pecuniary funds, has led to numberless losses. Charity funds, when deposited in the hands of individuals, are found, in process of time, from the ordinary changes of human affairs, wholly to disappear; whether the depositories chosen have been the heads of opulent families, the successive incumbents of parishes, or other persons of the most respectable or distinguished station. Very little reflection can be necessary to convince any one that losses from this cause are, sooner or later, almost inevitable. Notices of them abound in the reports of the commissioners. The inducement of high interest has often led to the advance of charity money for parish purposes of an extraordinary nature, such as extensive repairs of a church or building, or enlarging a workhouse, on an engagement, ratified perhaps by a resolution of vestry, to pay the interest, and ultimately replace the principal out of the parish rates. This has often been done without any unfair intentions; but the payment of interest has been kept up only till it was objected to, and it was then discovered that, as future rates could not be pledged for sums which ought to have been raised when the expenses were required to be incurred, there was no available security for either principal or interest.”

A permanent superintending board then, such as that recommended by the select committee of 1835, is to be regarded, not as merely expedient, but as positively indispensable. The Government, we are happy to see, are of this opinion; for, as these sheets pass through the press, the lord chancellor has brought in a bill by which it is proposed to appoint commissioners for the control and superintendence of charitable trusts. On these commissioners important powers are to be conferred, to enable them to give authority for sales, exchanges, and leases of charity property — empowering them to remove trustees, and to appoint their successors; to settle schemes; to compromise claims; to inquire into the receipt and application of charity revenues; to inspect accounts and vouchers; to examine witnesses upon oath; to order transfers of stock; to call in

moneys defectively secured, &c. The eleventh section gives effect to a principle long advocated by those who have had at heart the amendment of the law of real property. It enacts that estates shall vest in the trustees to be appointed under the act by virtue of the appointment alone, without any instrument of conveyance. To this extent we bestow on the bill our entire, unqualified approbation. A part of the plan is to appoint "two fit persons" to be "inspectors" for the purposes of the act. We have misgivings as to these functionaries. We doubt much whether there will be work for them. We should greatly prefer occasional auxiliaries in the shape of assistant commissioners, to be paid by the day. Their duties would be professional, and often delicate and important. No man, we venture to assert, competent to perform those duties adequately, would consent wholly to abandon his proper avocations for an appointment of the stamp here contemplated. There is another defect in the bill; it limts the jurisdiction of the Board to cases where the property of the charity does not exceed 50l. a year of income, or 1,2007. in value. We cannot help suspecting that this restriction has been introduced per incuriam. It seems absurd to erect a Board for so insignificant a purpose. We should humbly advise that the jurisdiction of the commissioners should be increased; and that parties conceiving themselves aggrieved by their decisions should (subject to certain qualifications and restrictions as to amount and value) have the benefit of an appeal to the Court of Chancery. This would operate as a salutary check on the Board, and would make it safe to extend the scope of their authority. We are anxious that the lord chancellor's mind should be drawn to these points. Again, we must observe that while the bill gives ample power for the removal of trustees, and for the substitution of others in their places, it nowhere gives authority to fill up mere vacancies; an omission the more extraordinary, since it is one of the first things that ought to have been provided for by the bill. These blemishes, however, may be easily corrected. The measure, we repeat, though long deferred, is creditable to the Government, and will give satisfaction to the country.

strictly judicial, the points decided in this case are of legal authority. I will be remembered that the petition of Colonel D'Este, son of the late Duke of Sussex, claiming the peerage dignities of his father, was disposed of by the House of Lords in the last session of parliament. The sole question was, whether a valid marriage had been contracted between His Royal Highness and the Lady Augusta Murray, regard being had to the provisions of the 12 Geo. 3. c. 11., which enacts that no descendant of George II. shall be capable of contracting matrimony without the previous consent of the person on the throne. The facts shortly stated were these:-In the year 1793 a ceremony of marriage was celebrated at Rome between the parties by a clergyman of the Church of England (the Rev. Mr. Gunn), in a form as nearly as could be according to the rites of that establishment; in other words, the requirements of Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act, the 26 Geo. 2. s. 33., were, as far as possible under the circumstances, complied with. And although it was admitted that the Royal Marriage Act would have annulled it had it been contracted in England, the question was, whether the same consequence attached in the case of a contract celebrated and consummated beyond the realm. Upon this point the Queen's judges were ordered to advise the committee; and, having taken time to consider, came ultimately to a unanimous opinion, delivered by the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, that the prohibitory words of the act were general, namely, "that no one of the persons therein described should be capable of contracting matrimony." This, they held, was an abstract, unlimited interdiction, constituting in the Duke an incapacity, which he carried with him wherever he went, and which was consequently as operative and as insuperable in Italy as in this country. The marriage, therefore, was clearly bad; and to this the Committee for Privileges assented, and resolved accordingly. Such is a brief account of this determination. A point, however, arose in the law of evidence, to which attention may usefully be directed.

It having been considered important for the claimant to show that, by the lex loci contractus, his marriage was good, a witness was produced to prove the existing law of Rome on the point. That witness was the learned and well-known Dr. Wiseman, who, upon examination, stated himself to be a Roman Catholic bishop, "and coadjutor to the bishop who is Vicar Apostolic to the central district of England at present." His evidence was objected to by the Attorney-General, on the ground that he was not a professional lawyer, nor had he any peculiar means of knowledge to render him admissible in the character of a skilled witness, competent to

prove foreign law as matter of fact. The claimant's counsel, therefore, proceeded to qualify the witness by examining him as to his position and attainments. The doctor stated: :- "I have had no personal experience of the administration of the law at Rome. I have studied the canon law. I have not gone through a regular course of it; but, for the discharge of my duties, it has been necessary that I should make myself acquainted with the canon law on all points on which it applies to matrimonial cases. I have gone through the studies usual for ecclesiastics, but not for ecclesiastical lawyers. I have not gone through such a course of study as would qualify me to be a judge in the ecclesiastical tribunals. I have no means of knowing the law on this subject more than any other learned ecclesiastic. I have been appointed an ecclesiastical judge in this country by the court at Rome, as any other bishop or vicargeneral might be. All that relates to matrimonial cases would come, of course, before me in my present office, and I should dispose of them by the canon law of Rome. It would be my duty to decide with respect to them. My decision would be of authority till reversed. I have frequently, during my residence in England, exercised this jurisdiction. I have authority to determine whether a marriage between two Catholics is or is not valid. The tribunals at Rome would respect my decisions, and act upon them. My jurisdiction is entirely confined to spiritual censures and to consequences of an ecclesiastical character, not affecting property or civil rights." Upon this the Lords determined that the witness came within the description of a person learned virtute officii, and that his evidence was therefore admissible. It was accordingly received; and, as we well remember, was exceedingly curious and instructive, showing how far the present law of Rome and of other Catholic countries recognises the validity of marriages contracted there by Protestants. In particular the learned doctor held that

In course of the argument reference was had to a case decided by Mr. Justice Wightman at Nisi Prius, — Reg. v. Dent, 1 Car. & Kir. 97., where it appears to have been held that a witness called to prove foreign law need not be at all connected with the legal profession. The question turned on the law of Scotland as to marriage. To prove it, a person was put in the box whose knowledge was stated by himself to be founded merely on these facts, namely, that he was born and educated in Scotland, where he had resided till he was twenty years of age. He, however, asserted himself to be acquainted with Scotch law; and the learned judge admitted his evidence. Adverting, however, to this decision, the Lord Chancellor took occasion, in the Sussex Peerage case, to say, that it was the "universal opinion both of the judges and the lords that the case represented to have been decided by Mr. Justice Wightman was not law." The witness must therefore either belong to the legal profession, or be (like Dr. Wiseman) peritus virtute officii.

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