THE

EVISED REPORTS

BEING

A REPUBLICATION OF SUCH CASES

IN THE

GLISH COURTS OF COMMON LAW AND EQUITY,

FROM THE YEAR 1785,

AS ARE STILL OF PRACTICAL UTILITY.

EDITED BY

FREDERICK POLLOCK, BART., D.C.L., LL.D.,

OF LINCOLN'S INN,

ASSISTED BY

. SAUNDERS, J. G. PEASE, AND ARTHUR B. CANE,

(EQUITY CASES).

(COMMON LAW CASES).

SIMONS; 14 QUEEN'S BENCH; 4 EXCHEQUER;
2 CARRINGTON & KIRWAN; 17 LAW JOURNAL.

BRADBURY, AGNEW, & Co. LD., PRINTERS,

LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.

PREFACE TO VOL. LXXX.

THE interest of the cases in this volume is, if anything, more miscellaneous than usual.

Bishop of Hereford v. Griffin, p. 49, is one of the not very numerous line of authorities on the worst penned section in one of the worst penned statutes of modern times, the Copyright Act, 1842. It is by no means clear how far it can still be relied on for any practical purpose since the decision of the House of Lords in Lawrence and Bullen v. Aflalo [1904] A. C. 17. At all events the argument for the plaintiff went far beyond what could now be supported. The actual ground of decision was that the defendants had made an evasive and insufficient answer to a full and specific assertion of the plaintiff's claim, and this appears to be right; the proposition in the head-note does little more than repeat the ambiguous language of the Act. Boosey v. Purday, p. 495, decided that under the older Acts a foreigner not resident within the jurisdiction could not acquire copyright by publication in the United Kingdom. It is understood, on the strength of very weighty dicta in the House of Lords, that under the Act of 1842 the law is otherwise; and on the faith of its being so British authors enjoy the reciprocal privilege of copyrightsubject to printing from American-set type-by first or simultaneous publication in the United States.

Delivery of a copy of a newspaper several years old to a person sent by the plaintiff to procure it is a new publication to that person of a libel on the plaintiff contained in the newspaper, creating a new cause of action at the date of the delivery: Duke of Brunswick v. Harmer, p. 241. This does not seem a reasonable result: the decision stands undisputed,