List of Public General Statutes. 303 Fourth, for the administration of justice in New | January, one thousand eight hundred and thirSouth Wales and Van Dieman's Land. ty-nine the repayment of certain sums advanced 43. An act to amend the laws for the re- by the Bank of Ireland for the public service. covery of small debts by civil bill in Ireland. 60. An act for correcting mistaken refe44. An act to provide for the costs of pro-rences to his late Majesty in acts of this session secutions for concealing the birth of children of parliament. by secret burying or otherwise disposing of their dead bodies. 61. An act to extend an exemption granted by an act of the last session of parliament from 45. An act to alter the mode of giving notices the duties of assessed taxes, in respect of cerfor the holding of vestries, of making procla-tain carriages with less than four wheels, and mations in cases of outlawry, and of giving to amend the laws relating to the said duties. notices on Sundays with respect to various 62. An act to authorize her Majesty, until six months after the commencement of the next session of parliament, to carry into immediate execution, by orders in council, any treaties, conventions, or stipulations made with any foreign power or state for the suppression of the slave trade. matters. 46. An act to vest the rolls estate in her Majesty, and to provide for the future payment of the salary of the master of the rolls and the expenses of the rolls chapel. 47. An act to repeal the prohibition of the payment of the salaries and allowances of the East India company's officers during their absence from their respective stations in India. 48. An act to appoint a second commissioner of bankrupt in Ireland; and to amend an act passed in the sixth and seventh years of the reign of his late Majesty King William the Fourth, intituled an act to amend the laws relating to bankrupts in Ireland. 49. An act to amend certain laws of excise relating to the duties on malt made in the United Kingdom. 50. An act to facilitate the conveyance of lands and buildings for the purposes of two acts passed respectively in the fifth and sixth years of his late Majesty King William the Fourth. 51. An act to authorize a further issue of Exchequer bills for public works and fisheries and employment of the poor, and to amend the acts relating thereto. 52. An act to suspend to the end of the next session of parliament the making of lists and the ballots and enrolments for the militia of the United Kingdom. 53. An act to explain and amend an act of the sixth and seventh years of his late Majesty, for extinguishing the secular jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Ely in certain liberties in the counties of York, Nottingham, and Cambridge. 63. An act to defray the charge of the pay, clothing, and contingent and other expenses of the disembodied militia in Great Britain and Ireland; and to grant allowances in certain cases to subaltern officers, adjutants, paymasters, quartermasters, surgeons, assistant surgeons, surgeons' mates, and serjeant majors of the militia, until the first day of July one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight. 64. An act for regulating the coroners of the county of Durham. 65. An act to render valid certain acts done in the performance of duties in the Court of Exchequer in Scotland by the lord ordinary on the bills in the Court of Session, and for the better regulation of the said Court of Exchequer. 66. An act to extend to Ireland the act of the fifth and sixth years of his late Majesty's reign, consolidating and amending the laws relating to the cruel and improper treatment of animals. 67. An act to amend an act of the fifth year of his Majesty King George the Fourth, for consolidating and amending the laws relative to the arbitration of disputes between masters and workmen. 68. An act to provide for payment of the expenses of holding coroners' inquests. 59. An act to amend an act for the commutation of tithes in England and Wales. 70. An act to authorize the commissioners for the affairs of India and the Court of Direc 54. An act to provide more effectual means to make treasurers of counties and counties of cities in Ireland account for public monies,tors of the East India Company to suspend the and to secure the same. 55. An act for better regulating the fees payable to sheriffs upon the execution of civil process. 56. An act for amending the several acts for the regulation of attorneys and solicitors. 57. An act to impose certain duties of excise on sugar made from beet root in the United Kingdom. subsisting enactments concerning the fourfold system of nomination of candidates for the East India Company's college at Haileybury, and for providing during such suspension for the examination of candidates for the said college. 71. An act to continue until the first day of August one thousand eight hundred and thirtyeight, and to the end of the then session of par58. An act to revive and continue, until the liament, two acts of the last session of parliasixth day of April one thousand eight hundred ment, for suspending appointments to certain and thirty-eight, an act of the last session of dignities and offices in cathedrals and collegiate parliament, for suspending proceedings for re-churches, and to sinecure rectories, and for covering payment of the money advanced under the acts for establishing tithe composi tions in Ireland. 59. An act to postpone until the first day of preventing the immediate effects on ecclesiastical jurisdictions of the measures in progress for the alteration of dioceses. 72. An act to provide for the appointment 304 On the Expenses of Coroners.-Conflicting Decisions. of Lords Justices in the case of the next successor to the Crown being out of the realm at the time of the demise of her Majesty. 73. An act for better enabling her Majesty to confer certain powers and immunities on trading and other companies. are in accordance with my views of the effects of the act. It is true that for the additional trouble and various entries he has to make, and the advances of money the coroner has now imposed on him, he gets an extra six and eightpence; but all the former complaints of the coroners of inadequate remuneration in regard to mileage for travelling expenses, ad 74. An act to restrain the alienation of corporate property in certain towns in Ireland. 75. An act to prolong for ten years her Ma-journed inquests, attending assizes, inquests in jesty's commission for building new churches. 76. An act to impose rates of packet postage on East India letters, and to amend certain acts relating to the Post Office. 77. An act to assimilate the practice of the Central Criminal Court to other Courts of criminal judicature within the Kingdom of England and Wales, with respect to offenders liable to the punishment of death. prisons, &c., are left precisely in the same state as heretofore, and their petitions totally disregarded; and I almost despair of seeing them attended to. Yet I cannot refrain from making known through the medium of your valuable publication what I consider to he unjust: namely, that the judges of assize require coroners not only personally to appear at the opening of the Court, but that whenever they have committed any prisoners for trial, they, the coroners, shall not leave the Court until such prisoners have been tried. In this 79. An act to apply the sum of five millions way I was detained a few months since from two hundred and twenty thousand pounds out Monday till Saturday noon, and once since in of the consolidated fund to the service of the a similar way (but not so long), without reyear one thousand eight fiundred and thirty-ceiving a sixpence towards paying my exseven, and to appropriate the supplies granted penses. in this session of parliament. 78. An act to amend an act for the regulation of municipal corporations in England and Wales. 80. An act to exempt certain bills of exchange and promissory notes from the operation of the laws relating to usury. 81. An act to provide for the levying of rates in boroughs and towns having Municipal Corporations in England and Wales. 82. An act to amend the law relating to grand Juries in Ireland, so far as to empower the grand jury of the county of Fermanagh to reconstruct the baronial subdivisions of the said county. 83. An act to compel clerks of the peace for counties and other persons to take the custody of such documents as shall be directed to be deposited with them under the standing orders of either house of parliament. 84. An act to abolish the punishment of death in cases of forgery. 85. An act to amend the laws relating to offences against the person. 86. An act to amend the laws relating to burglary and stealing in a dwelling house. 87. An act to amend the laws relating to robbery and Stealing from the person. 88. An act to amend certain acts relating to the crime of piracy. 89. An act to amend the laws relating to burning or destroying buildings and ships. 90. An act to amend the law relative to of fences punishable by transportation for life. 91. An act for abolishing the punishment of death in certain cases. ON THE EXPENSES OF CORONERS. To the Editor of the Legal Observer. I can scarcely believe it possible that our great men in Parliament can be aware that coroners are thus treated. If it were more generally known, notwithstanding the outcry for economy, I believe there are many who would wish to do justice. I think I may be excused for reverting again to the subject of mileage. It is a fact that, exclusive of turnpikes, ostlers, necessary refreshments, &c., it actually costs more to hire a horse, or to travel per coach, than coroners are allowed. I therefore beg to submit that the coroners throughout the kingdom should immediately petition the Queen, that she would be pleased to direct her Majesty's Attorney and Solicitor General to revise the bill, which was brought into Parliament two years ago, and which passed the House of Commons, but was rejected by the Lords, merely on account of the Commons having inserted a clause that coroner's courts should be open. A COUNTY CORONER. CONFLICTING DECISIONS. MORTGAGOR AND MORTGAGEE. IN Burere v. Wharton, 7 Sim. 483, which was a suit for foreclosure, the Vice Chancellor declared, that where the time fixed by a decree in a foreclosure suit for payment of principal, interest, and costs, is enlarged, the Court will direct subsequent interest to be computed on the aggregate sum found due for principal, interest, and costs. In Wharton v. Cradock, 1 Keen, 267, which was an administration suit, the present Master of the Rolls referred to this doctrine, and declared that, for many years past, where the I have noticed with much pleasure your re-time for paying what is found due on the marks on the Coroner's Inquest Expenses mortgage is enlarged, subsequent interest is Bill, now passed into a law. Your observations to be computed upon the principal only. Conflicting Decisions.—Selections from Correspondence. The latter report is by no means a satisfactory one, for though the Master of the Rolls is made to refer to the cases where a distinction was taken between a bill for foreclosure and a bill for a sale, on the very obvious ground that in the first case the Court compels the mortgagee to wait for his money, yet it does not appear whether his Lordship did or did not rely upon the distinction; conceive no real distinction exists. The following cases are also opposed to each other, though the same distinction as is above alluded to might be attempted to be drawn. In Upperton v. Harrison, 7 Sim. 444, a foreclosure suit, the Vice Chancellor, where the proceeds of a sale of the mortgaged property, to which the first mortgagee had consented, were insufficient to pay him his principal and interest, refused to give the defendants (subsequent mortgagees) their costs out of the fund, and ordered it to be paid to the first mortgagee: while in Alston v. Parker, Rolls, Nov. 6, 1835, Lord Cottenham gave the defendants (also subsequent mortgagees) their costs in the first instance, where the produce of the estate was insuflicient to pay off the first mortgagee. This last was a suit for a sale. It is superfluous for me, Sir, to comment upon these conflicting decisions; but having recently been embarrassed in practice by them, it may be useful to make their existence known. From principle and authority, I am inclined to think the Vice Chancellor right in both instances; but nothing short of a decision can settle either point. SELECTIONS X. Y. Z. FROM CORRESPONDENCE. PAID AND ARTICLED CLERKS. To the Editor of The Legal Observer. Sir, Is page 208, under the head "Articled Clerks," there is a statement, which, at first sight, to an unthinking person, or to one who is not within the pale of attorneys, and therefore cannot rightly judge of the many jarring interests to be foreseen and guarded against,appears certainly to be as illiberal as it is unjust namely, that attorneys have an antipathy to engaging articled clerks to attend to business in the capacity of paid clerks. First, then, I will adopt your correspondent's hint, and say that one reason, perhaps, is that he may, after the lapse of some years, gain over a few clients; but, believe me, that is the least objection an attorney has. The great objection is as follows: when an attorney has a vacancy in his office for a managing clerk (and few articled clerks would engage in a lower branch), the first point to be looked after on both sides is self interest. To obtain such a situation, the clerk must have toiled many years, and, as he has not been articled, has most likely risen through the various grades 305 in different offices, and is, of course, familiar But not to waste your valuable space, I come upon the great point of debate at once, it is simply this: when an attorney engages a clerk, the great consideration generally is to engage a person as a permanent clerk at a regular satury, and though perhaps, as some will have it, the remuneration is small in comparison to the services rendered; yet when we come to consider the great responsibility, the constant wariness requisite, the payments out of pocket, and the many deductions and losses in business, and compare an attorney's net profits, a clerk will often find he has a good tithe of the clear profits. Now an articled clerk merely engages with an office to suit his own convenience till he can meet with a partnership, or enter the firm he serves as a junior partner, or make a connexion of his own of sufficient importance to enable him to dispense with his clerkship; and during the latter time of course must more or less neglect the office he serves; all these considerations, I submit, are substantial objections, and not simply "illiberality." Every attorney is aware that it unsettles an office for some time, and the more so where a gentleman has the entire management, when any vacancy occurs; and this urges the profession the more to engage those who they have every reason to believe will stay many years with them, in preference to those whose term must, in the natural order of things, be of but short duration. I should not have presumed to trespass on your pages to so great a length, but I think the insertion of the above will but do the profession justice. H. C. L. ABOLISHING IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT. Sir, I beg to ask the favour of your inserting in your impartial work the following observations: Her Majesty's learned Attorney General has proposed the Bill for Abolishing Imprisonment for Debt with the view, perhaps, of doing good; but I cannot concur with the learned gentleman in thinking that this bill, if passed, would act as beneficially to the people of this kingdom as the Insolvent Debtors' Act. In my humble opinion, this bill, in eight cases out of ten, will, if passed, do more harin 306 Selections from Correspondence.-Superior Courts: Lord Chancellor's Court. than good; the roguish debtor's means of cheating will be increased, instead of decreased; for the enactments of the bill are not sufficient to protect the creditor from the various tricks which the ingenious and roguish debtor will be able to play upon him. The learned gentleman may, perhaps, think that the bill provides means for punishing fraud; but I think that he would be outwitted in many cases, for there is inore cunning, judgment, and pains taken and exercised by a roguish debtor to cheat, than the learned Attorney General or any other member of the House of Commons has exhibited in proposing or supporting this bill. I do not mean to say that all debtors are rogues; but I will say that the majority of those who do not pay 20s. in the pound are. By the present law, the debtor has ample means of protecting himself from the oppressive creditor, by the Insolvent Debtors' Act. The creditor cannot arrest the debtor without first taking an affidavit that the money is justly due and owing to him; and if he swear falsely the debtor can bring an action for false imprisonment, and indict the offender for perjury; and if the debtor has been unfortunate in trade, he can claim relief under the Insolvent Debtors' Act. Therefore there are few honest men who are not discharged immediately on applying for relief; and those, or a great portion of them, who have been a long time and now are in prison, have been guilty of some fraud, or have infringed the laws of their country. Even the present law of discharging debtors under the Insolvent Debtors' Act is sometimes a very great hardship to the honest creditor. Sir John Campbell and the supporters of the proposed bill, which is to do such extraordinary good, say, "That this nation is called the land of liberty,' but that it cannot be while there is a law allowing imprisonment for debt." All persons, except those who are confined in gaol for debt, those who owe more than they wish to pay, and persons possessed of very slender information and judgment, know that those who call it the land of liberty," mean that the subject has a right to do and think what he pleases, so long as he does not injure his fellow creatures. I have no doubt that many members of parliament who support the bill have a good intention in so doing; but I cannot help saying, that men who are elected by the people to represent them in parliament, should take care, and consider maturely, that the measures they propose should not decrease, but add to the welfare of those whom they represent. Therefore I trust that Sir John Campbell will reconsider this bill before he carries it any further, and in so doing I hope he will exercise that judgment which he always has on every other occa sion exhibited. RATIONALIS. FEES ON CHANCERY AFFIDAVITS. Sir, I had occasion, a few days since, to swear to joint affidavit of myself and another, verify ing several extracts from burial registers, which being rather lengthy took up two sheets of paper, sewed together; but as the first sheet contained only some of the copies of the extracts, which were carried on in the second sheet (which also contained the affidavit), the clerk at the Public Office insisted on my writ ing on the first sheet of my athidavit an exhibit, and besides charging me 38. for the two oaths, he charged me 5s. for what he termed two exhibits, alleging as a reason for the charge that both deponents referred to the extracts above written." I wish to be informed, through the medium of your periodical, whether this was a proper charge,and to whom all these fees are paid. S. T. [We believe the clerk has no interest in increasing the fees, as they are all accounted for to the Treasury; but our correspondent properly points out the circumstance. It is important that the fees on administering justice should be as small as possible. ED.] SUPERIOR COURTS. Lord Chancellor's Court. TRUST DEED.-RELEASE OF SECURITY. 4 creditor, having a mortgage security, signed, with other creditors of the mortgagor, a deed of trust, by which the mortgagor gave his property to trustees for the benefit of his creditors generally. The deed contained words of exception as to mortgages: Held, that the mortgage creditor had not released his security. This was an appeal from a decree of the Master of the Rolls upon exceptions to the Master's report. The principal question was, whether the late Lord Delaval had waived his claim under a mortgage on a trust fund securing a debt due to him from his son in law, Mr. Cawthorne, by being a party to a deed of trust executed by that gentleman and by his creditors, vesting part of his property in trustees, for the benefit of the creditors. The facts are more fully stated in the Lord Chancellor's judgment. Mr. Wigram and Mr. Sidebottom were heard for the representatives of Lord Deleval in support of the appeal. Mr. Walker, Mr. Sharpe, Mr. J. Russell, and other counsel were heard in support of the decree for the representatives and creditors of Mr. Cawthorne, and for other parties interested. They contended, that Lord Deleval might have availed himself, either of the mortgage granted to him by Mr. Cawthorne, or of the trust deed by which part of Mr. Cawthorne's property was divisible among his creditors generally. They submitted that it was not competent to his Lordship or to his representatives, after a lapse of nearly forty years to take advantage of both securities, after having abandoned one of them by the memorandum in the trust deed in 1797. The Lord Chancellor.-This case came be Superior Courts: Lord Chancellor's Court.-Vice Chancellor's Court. 307 discharge themselves from liability, is ille- fore the Court upon exceptions to the Master's report, taken by the executors of the late Lord This was a bill filed by a shareholder in a Delaval. In the year 1778, his Lordship settled 10,000. upon his daughter and Mr. Caw- dissolved company, called "The Anglo-Amethorne, to whom she was at that period just rican Mining Association," against other parmarried, for their respective lives; with re-ties, who were shareholders at the time the mainder, after the death of the survivor, to the company was dissolved, praying to have the children of the marriage, if any, with an ulti-affairs of the company wound up, and to commate trust, in case of leaving no such children, pel the defendants to contribute to the losses, to trustees for the benefit of Mr. Cawthorne. part of which had fallen wholly on the plaintiff. At a subsequent period, Mr. Cawthorne bor-The defendant Winsor demurred for want of rowed 3000%. of Lord Delaval; and as a security equity, on the ground that the company was for the repayment of that loan, his lordship re- unlawful, and its scheme a fraud upon the ceived a mortgage of Mr. Cawthorne's interests public. under his marriage settlement. By a deed bearing date in June, 1797, Mr. Cawthorne assigned his interest in the 10,000, to trustees, for the benefit of his creditors generally, the trust deed being executed by all those creditors who had the heaviest claims, and, among the rest by Lord Delaval himself. A memorandum was, however, endorsed upon the deed expressive of the desire of Lord Delaval to maintain his claim on the 10,000l., as a mortgagee, in which Mr. Cawthorne acquiesced, as did also Mr. Tennant, one of the trustees for the creditors, and all three subscribed the indorsement. Lord Delaval died in the year 1808, and Mr. and Mrs. Cawthorne also died, leaving no children of the marriage. The ultimate reversion in his Lady's marriage portion had, therefore, according to the marriage settlement, become the property of Mr. Cawthorne and his representatives, subject to the operation of the deed of trust, and of the mortgage to Lord Delaval. In the course of the present proceedings, a reference having been made to the Master upon the subject, he found that Lord Delaval had waved his claim as mortgagee, by becoming a party to the trust assignment. It was to that report of the Master, that the exceptions His Lordship just argued had been taken. observed upon these facts, that if this claim were to be considered as waved, it was clearly against the intention of Lord Delaval, and in consequence of misrepresentation, no doubt innocently, made by other parties to him. He was of opinion under the circumstances, that the claim of Lord Delaval was maintainable both by the terms of the deed which expressly excluded a release of mortgages, and by the memorandum endorsed upon it. He should, therefore, allow the exceptions so far, and direct the Master to review his opinion; and, has it was highly inconvenient totake a case by piece-meal, to include his finding on this point in his general report. Lee v. Lockhart and others, Sittings at Lincoln's Inn, August 5th, 7th, and 8th, 1837. Vice Chancellor's Court. ILLEGAL COMPANY.-DEMURRER. A company for working mines, created by There was also a demurrer for want of parties. The company, it appeared, was formed in the year 1833, for the purpose of working gold mines in America. By the deed of settlement, the capital was to consist of 6000/. in sixty shares of 1007. each, with power for the shareholders to create new shares, with a right of preemption at par to the holders of original shares for the time being. The deed purported to make the shares transferable at the discretion of the shareholders. The bill alleged that a person of the name of Penman, who with a man named Muskitt, was principally instrumental in forming the company, had represented that there were gold mines in the United States which might be worked with a little capital to great advantage. One of the first acts of the company was, to send him to America for the purpose of discovering those mines, and with that view he was invested with unlimited power of drawing on the company. In 1834, several new shares were created. In the latter part of 1835, it was discovered that Penman had abused his powers. In 1836, more new shares were created; but in March, 1837, the affairs of the company were found to be in irretrievable insolvency, and the company was dissolved pursuant to the provisions of the deed. It appeared that Penman had employed the defendant Winsor on behalf of the company, and that Winsor had brought an action against the plaintiff as a shareholder, and recovered a verdict in respect of that employThe bill alleged that Winsor was in ment. fact himself a shareholder, liable to contribution towards the losses, as he had acquired one of Penman's shares. Mr. Knight and Mr. Cole, in support of the demurrers, maintained that the company as constituted, claiming without charter or act of incorporation, the power of creating transferable shares, was in truth a bubble. The defect in the bill for want of parties was the absence of Muskett, who had been a shareholder, but had since assigned his shares. Though the act of George the First, called the Bubble Act, which would make this company clearly illegal, was repealed by the 6 G. 4, c. 91, still this company is illegal at common law. Mr. Jacob and Mr. Daniell, endeavoured to support the bill. Since the repeal of the Bubble Act there was no law prohibiting the formation and operation of a company like this. At all events, the defendant Winsor, |