the higher branches as reasonably to be deemed a higher class school may be dealt with in like manner. Certain schools are scheduled as higher class schools at the passing of the Act, and power is given to school boards to convert any school in a parish or burgh into a higher class school. (Secs. 62-64.)

2010. Inspection. Every school is open at all times to Government inspection, but no inspection or inquiry into religious instruction is permitted. (Sec. 66.)

2011. Conscience Clause.-Every school is open to children of all denominations, and parents may regulate what religious instruction, or none, their children shall receive in the school, and such instruction can be given or observance practised only at the beginning and end of any meeting of the school for elementary instruction, which practically leaves not more than four distinct times a day for that purpose. (Sec. 68.)

2012. Compulsitor.-Every parent must provide elementary instruction for his children between the ages of five and thirteen in reading, writing, and arithmetic. If "unable from poverty to pay the school fees, he must apply to the parochial board, whose duty it is to do so on being satisfied of the parent's inability. (Sec. 69; [Ferrier, 1881, 9 R. 30].) Should the parochial board refuse to pay the fees, the school board may obtain an order on it from the Sheriff to do so. (41 and 42 Vict. c. 78, sec. 22.) Parents failing to educate their children, to ascertain whom an officer is appointed by every school board, may be prosecuted by such officer, and condemned in a fine of one pound or fourteen days' imprisonment; and if continuing to disobey, may be proceeded against at intervals of one month (41 and 42 Vict. c. 78, sec. 28); the expenses, so far as not recovered from the parent, to come out of the school fund. (Sec. 70.) A parent living in a Highland parish three and a half miles from the nearest school, neglecting to send a girl of five years' old that distance to school, and having no other means of education, was held not to have failed in the sense of

the Act. (Campbell, 1877, 4 R. C. J. 17.) Employers of children under thirteen are to be treated like defaulting parents if they keep them in their employment after notice from the school board, but without exempting the parent from liability. A certificate of ability to read and write from an inspector frees parents and employers from liability to prosecution. (Secs. 69-73.)

2013. The Act of 1878 makes detailed provisions for the education of children employed in works or in casual employment, prohibiting the employment of any child under the age of ten, or under fourteen without the production of certain certificates of school attendance. These belong rather to factory and workshop legislation than to the present subject. A school board may exempt from the prohibitions of the Act children. employed in casual employment, which is defined in the Act, and also children above the age of eight, for the necessary operations of husbandry and the ingathering of the crops, or to give assistance in the fisheries, provided the period or periods of such exemption do not exceed on the whole six weeks in one year. The provisions of the Act regarding the employment of children are to be enforced by every school board in its district, its enforcement on employers being the part of the inspectors under the Factory and Mining Acts, to assist whom in doing so, with information or otherwise, is the duty of school boards. School board officers may, on obtaining an order to that effect from the Sheriff, at any time within forty-eight hours from its date, enter any place where children are believed to be employed in contravention of the Act for purposes of examination. Any one refusing them admittance is liable in a penalty of twenty pounds. Employers of children and parents who employ their children in contravention of the Act, are liable, on summary conviction, in a penalty of forty shillings, but are exempt on showing that it was due to the guilt of some other person, such as that of an agent or workman engaging the child, or of a

parent producing a forged certificate of birth, and that he himself used all due diligence to enforce its provisions. When such right of exemption is shown to the satisfaction of the school board, they are to proceed against the agent, workman, or parent, who has thus incurred a like liability. (Secs. 5-13.)

2014. Supervision.-All school boards must make reports and returns from time to time, as required by the Education Department, by whom the whole proceedings are laid before Parliament. (Secs. 74, 6, 75.)

BOOK III.

OF THE MACHINERY OF THE LAW.

2015. An outline of the legal rights and obligations of Scotchmen having now been presented to the reader, as they affect, first, the members of the same family, and second, the members of the general community in their private relations, we have now to consider briefly, in the third place, the methods by which these rights and obligations are ascertained in particular cases, and the means by which they are enforced by the State.

2016. All rights and obligations are ascertained, if doubtful or disputed, by obtaining a decree of a competent court of law, and they are enforced by diligence or execution, that is to say, by calling in the executive power of the State to support and vindicate the decree. The humblest judicature is on a footing of equality with the highest, to the extent of being entitled to vindicate its lawful authority vi et armis, that is to say, by call ing in the aid of the military, in the last resort.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE SUPREME COURTS AND JUDGES OF SCOTLAND.

I. THE COURT OF SESSION.

2017. The Court of Session is the highest civil tribunal in Scotland. It was instituted in the reign of King James v., by an Act of Parliament, bearing date the 17th May 1532, for the purpose of discharging the judicial functions which had originally belonged to the King and his council, and which, since the

year 1425, had in a great measure devolved on a committee of the Parliament itself, as the great Council of the nation.

2018. The new Court consisted originally of fourteen ordinary judges, half spiritual and half temporal,1 and a president, who in the first instance was a churchman, and who was appointed to act as chairman, except when the Lord Chancellor was present.

2019. The King reserved to himself the privilege of appointing other lords or members of his great Council, to the number of three or four, to sit and vote with the Lords of Session.

2020. The office of Chancellor of Scotland was abolished at the Union in 1707; and the habit of appointing peers to take part in the deliberations of the judges has long since fallen into abeyance, though, when a peer chances to be present, he is still accommodated with a seat on the bench, as a mark of respect.

2021. From its foundation, down to the year 1808, the Court of Session consisted of one tribunal. In that year, in consequence of the great "extension of agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and population," it was divided into two separate courts, called Divisions, with co-ordinate jurisdiction. (48 Geo. III. c. 151.) The Lord President, who continued to enjoy the rank and dignity of President of the whole Court, and who still discharges very important functions in that capacity, with seven of the ordinary judges, formed the First Division, and the Lord Justice-Clerk, with six of the ordinary lords, the Second Division.

2022. In 1810, the three junior ordinary judges of the First Division and the two junior ordinary judges of the Second Division were relieved from attendance in the Inner House, and appointed to sit as permanent Lords Ordinary in the Outer House; the quorum in either Division, which had formerly been four, being now reduced to three.

1 The practice of appointing churchmen to the bench did not cease immediately after the Reformation.-Erskine, i. 3. 13.